Heroes and Whiners: How we handle a challenge says a lot about who we are...

In the past couple of weeks, a whole bunch of people I know -- and  few I just know of -- have dealt with some truly trying and awful circumstances.  They have amazed me with their strength and resiliance. 

Other people I know -- and some I just observe -- seem to want to turn every little downturn in their lives into drama. They want -- and feel they deserve -- to be rescued from every real or imagined consequence. 

The juxtapostion has left me feeling like a great big curmudgeon. I want to support the people who really need it. I want to tell the rest to just get over themselves. 

Since when are we a society of whiners? Why is it suddenly ok to be needy and self-absorbed? And why is it that those who have the most legitimate reasons to complain or ask for help are the ones who best manage to stand on their own two feet? 

As frightening as the shadows are right now, our world isn't nearly so dark as the Greatest Generation's. Yet we complain so much more. 

I've often thought that the "Greatest Generation," the people who came of age in the Great Depression and then lived -- if they were lucky -- through World War II, got an uncessarily raw deal. It seems really unfair that they had to deal with so much hardship, then so much tragedy. 

But I've begun to think maybe there was a reason for that. Maybe that generation HAD to be grounded in the hardships of Depression in order to be ready for the hardships of a world war. Maybe they had to learn to do without to be hardened, tempered enough, to save the world from an evil dictator. Maybe that's just the way it had to be. 

I hope we, as a people, don't have to go through another devastating period of hard times just so we can learn to be tough again. I hope we can learn from history so that we aren't destined to repeat it. 

And I hope, I really hope, that we can become a little less self-absorbed, a little more resolute in our dealings with our everyday life, so that when really tough times come -- as they inevitably do -- we'll be ready.