What built this country? Freedom of religion? Landing on Plymouth Rock? Kicking out the English? All of the above and a thousand other things, but without hard work, lots of hard fucking grueling labor, those people wouldn’t have lived long enough to be more than bear shit. They put in the type of work nightmares are made of now days. They didn’t do it because they thought they were exceptional. They did it because they had to. They did it because when you’re on the bottom, the only place to go is up.

This mindset persisted for generations. We lacked a military of any real count until the first World War. We were too busy clawing our way up from the bottom and building the country to worry about such useless things as an army. Those fools in Europe could kill each other over their thoughts of grandeur while we built wealth and a lifestyle they could only dream about. War after war devastated Europe while the fledgling United States grew and grew. We even added some territory to our holdings just because some of their Royalty needed more money to kill each other with.

Then the mindset started changing after WWII. As a person changes, so does a country. Old thoughts become new. Yesterday’s dreams became today’s problems. Some problems become irrelevant while others grew in importance. Differences are only noticed after they happen and then are believed to have always existed. Somehow, the notion that we’re equal to the rest of the world, or behind, and had to bust balls became replaced with the notion that we’d proved what we needed and had the right to tell others how to behave. As with people, this notion triggers a decline in health. We’ve lost jobs. We’re becoming a consumer rather than a supplier. We’re in debt deeper than the world as ever seen. Other countries are producing more individuals with PhDs while we gladly let them do so because we think we have nothing else to learn.

Some version of this story has been true for every country in the world at some point in their history. It‘s not special. It‘s just the first time the United States has faced this problem.

The United States leads the world in how much we owe others, how many people we have locked up, and how much we spend on our military. None of these are things to be proud of. All of these things are side effects caused by thinking we’re exceptional and failing to do the work that would have made us exceptional instead.

Exceptional people don’t whine and cry when someone says they aren’t. People who are exceptional don’t roll their eyes and laugh when someone says they aren’t. Exceptional people are too busy putting in the work that makes them exceptional to worry about what anyone says. So, instead of crying like 5^th graders because you don’t like what a man says, act exceptional instead of thinking it, and this country will be again!