HIA - The Alt...

A careful examination of my life and the lives of those I observe on a regular basis reinforces an thought I know to be true but just have not really pursued to it's fullness: we want results but we don't like sacrifice. We want completion, but we don't want to put in the time.

We want our children to be successful, but we don't want to take the time to get in their lives, to teach them instead of letting the school handle it, to be a good example to them by our actions and not just our words.

We want to lose weight, but we don't want to stop eating, to get off our butts or to exercise, sweat, and feel pain.

We want success in our business endeavors, but we are unwilling to walk the difficult and narrow path of honesty, integrity, and self-sacrifice.

We want peace as a nation, but are not willing to eliminate those threats to the peace. Instead, large numbers of our population believe we should bank our future on the deceitful thought that we can resolve all of our conflicts across the negotiation table with rational and well-mannered adversaries.

We want harmonious relationships filled with joy, laughter, and love, but we cannot bring ourselves to love unconditionally.

We want to be religiously or spiritually sound, but we refuse to discipline and rebuke the fleshly burning desires of our hearts.

We've started to treat life like fast food - we want to have it our way...and in less than three minutes.

The last time I checked, fast food was not all that fulfilling.