By John Elizondo
Contributor
I was in class the other day and one of my professors gave me a challenge to go two weeks without using the dishwasher and washing machine and to do everything by hand.
She said we could not do it because our generation is not willing to take the time to do it and we want things done now.
Little did I know, but she made a valid point.
Earlier this month I kept an eye on the recent midterm election races that would determine if there could be a shift of power this year and in 2012.
I had no rooting interest, but I was interested in what the people of the United States of America had to say about our current governmental leaders.
Four years ago the writing on the wall was loud and clear: Americans were tired of President George W. Bush’s administration and the Republicans controlling Congress.
So they voted overwhelmingly Democrat to signal that in 2008, a change in presidency was going to be made.
When President Barack Obama was campaigning, he used the word “change” as a rallying cry for Americans to believe in.
Two years ago, people of the United States were riding a wave of emotion and excitement that seemed too good to last long.
Over the preceding two years of the Obama administration, the president and his supporters tried to pass legislation and make decisions that one would think would make this country better.
Over this time some Americans do not think our president has changed anything and quite frankly are running on
little patience.
So this month I was interested to see if people were truly fine with policies and propositions of the liberal-democrats or to see if they thought the conservative-republicans should return to control Congress.
The result was not surprising to me. Americans chose to change to the same people that were in power four years ago, the same people they voted out.
Why is this not surprising? Well, because America is a microwave society and we Americans want things to be done fast and effective and we have little to zero patience at all.
When some things are not working out, we tend to make knee-jerk reactions and revert to the times when everything was good with no worries.
Take the situation with the Tonight Show, for example,.NBC executives made a bad decision in forcing Jay Leno to retire and giving the Tonight Show to Conan O’Brien.
What was even worse of a decision was keeping Leno on the air just as a backup plan if O’Brien did not work out.
After seven months of sub-par ratings and angry affiliates, NBC made a change to the Tonight Show by essentially dropping Conan and giving the show back to Leno because they needed a quick solution.
Even in our own personal lives, we see as people that we operate to get things done quickly.
We live our lives off of fast food instead of home-cooked meals, we look for supplements and machines to help us lose weight fast rather than taking time to really work out, and we do not write thank you letters anymore; we just send a text.
Our society is heading for the worst and we are living our lives without giving anything a chance and not giving ourselves time to let plans develop into successes.
We are too afraid of failure and wasted time and effort that we make snap judgments.
So go ahead, America. Change your mind again because I guarantee the next time someone comes around to try to make this country better we will revert to the old because we are not willing to wait.
John Elizondo is a junior journalism major from San Antonio and a contributor for The Lariat.
