We are at a turning point in our history. There are two paths to choose. One is a path I’ve warned about tonight, the path that leads to fragmentation and self-interest. Down that road lies a mistaken idea of freedom, the right to grasp for ourselves some advantage over others. That path would be one of constant conflict between narrow interests ending in chaos and immobility. It is a certain route to failure.

These words were spoken 32 years ago by President Jimmy Carter in a speech about energy. He talked about coal, ethanol, and solar power but also about the ability of Americans to look beyond themselves and their materialism and work to make a better world.

Man everyone’s right; he was a shitty president.

Seriously, 30 years later we’re still having the same promises about energy, the same promises from the government and the same promises about the natural ability of Americans to solve problems. I’ve been told my entire life the same things about progress and working for a better world. Well, when are we going to get on it?

30 years of deferring what can be done tomorrow until tomorrow. Why? So our leaders can use the inevitable crisis that results from their inaction to further their own agenda. That’s what leadership is for, to move us forward. We live in the world that Carter warned us about. A divisive and immobile world ruled by fear. Not of harm being done to us or of oppression but that someone might take some of our stuff away.

While we’re distracted by television and internet and the manufactured political dramas they pipe directly into our living rooms the real world is passing us by. Work as hard as we might to maintain this false world made of plastic and hubris we will eventually fail because it is not real.

The real world is happening outside our artificially lit homes and away from our DVRs. The crisis of confidence that Carter spoke of has it’s roots in our fake realities that have been created to sate our lesser desires. But none of us are happy with this world and this is why we are no longer confident. We look around and feel deep inside that something is wrong but our cultural, spiritual and political leaders focus our attention back on their distorted realities.

Want to regain our confidence? Look at the real world.