We seem to have shifted to a time when things have gone from really mattering, to a time when some of those same things today seem to be just a matter of fact. That attitude may have played a part in some of the downward slide of the world in which we live today.

Generations ago, there were expectations that were prevalent in lives, expectations that carried consequences with them. Some of those expectations had to do with behavior, respect, educational responsibilities, home requirements and responsibilities, doing what one was told, and accepting consequences rather than pleading defenses and giving reasons for unacceptable behavior.

We have seen a shift somewhat from hard work and discipline to negotiation and entitlement. We’ve gone from working hard to just make the team to now expecting to be the starter automatically. We’ve seen bars lowered and mediocrity accepted almost as a norm. We’ve gone from accepting blame to now it being someone else’s fault.

We have seen people swing from being the best they can be able to earn one’s own self-gratification and self-satisfaction to everyone needs to be nice to me and give me self-esteem. We’ve gone from going out and getting it, to waiting at home and expecting it to be delivered to us.

Part of the problem could be attributed to the fact that we now live in an instant gratification kind of world. We seem to want everything, and we want it to be ready right away. We do fast food and online shopping with options for overnight delivery. We type emails and text rather than writing letters. We send thank you notes (if we do at all) via e-mail and text as opposed to writing a thank you note and sending it through the mail. We send birthday wishes via instant messaging and Facebook, rather than sending a card with a handwritten greeting through the USPS. We can now shop, bank, pay our bills, order food (both prepared and storable), contact repair people, go to college and in some cases work our jobs, without leaving our own home.

That’s not disrespecting any of today’s technology. Some of these changes give us more time to do other, hopefully more worthwhile, things. I use technology for many things but I still like writing letters (though I use my keyboard and printer to save me a little time.) I still hand-write thank you notes to people. I do my banking by hand. I write checks, I do not have a debit card, I postal mail my bill payments every month — though many say I am crazy for paying postage, my father earned a pretty good living (though not being money rich by any means) from the United States Postal Service, so I try and support the USPS with the mailing of my bills monthly and Christmas Cards yearly.

I absolutely refuse to believe that getting an education online is better than actually putting in the time to attend classes and have interaction with professors, teachers, fellow students and personally go through any internships, on-the-job training or interactive projects in the settings where they take place and not from a living room.

So, for the most part, we seem to have gone from working hard for what we want to sitting back and waiting for it to come to us. We seem to have lost the appreciation for earning our successes. And, we seem to have lost the motivation, and drive, to look at what might not have gone the way we may have wanted and make the necessary changes toward achieving the goal the next time. And for the most part, we seem to want the bar lowered, rather than accept the challenge to reach it where it was set in the first place.

During numerous teaching and coaching workshops and clinics I’ve attended through the years, I have found certain sayings that I hoped might motivate my students and athletes. One of the sayings I used a lot was “Good is the enemy of Best.” Another was “Good, Better, Best … Never should you rest … Until your Good becomes your Better…and your Better is your Best!” Still another was “Strive for Perfection to reach Excellence.” Each one of these sayings hopefully motivated the young people with whom I worked to not settle for anything less than what they could be or become. Some got the message, while some, unfortunately, didn’t heed the advice.

All of this kind of leads up to many accepting certain things happening in our society today, more as “matter of fact” crimes, injustices, intolerances or occurrences, rather than what could be, and probably should be, perceived as shocking and angering situations. These include things like the large number of home meth labs that have been discovered in our community alone, not to mention other communities and cities. Add to those, the number of drug busts made on street corners involving the dealing and buying of drugs that are flooding our communities. Thanks to the hard work and countless hours put in by our local law enforcement agencies, the number has diminished considerably, but it is still grossly too large.

The number of shootings that occur these days is also extremely high and the tragic loss, and waste of lives, happens so much, that we might becoming immune to the shock of that crime, and becoming more accepting just because it happens so much rather than be angry that it is happening so much.

Bullying (by young people and adults too), especially cyber-bullying, is much more common today, and is often met with remarks like “Kids will be kids,” “Boys will be boys,” “Let them work it out,” or one of my favorites (sarcasm), “‘Tis what it is.” In the meantime some kids are so devastated by the treatment they are receiving that they choose to end their lives over it.

We are losing more people, especially young people, to drug overdoses with the epidemic flow of drugs in our communities. Some have chosen to state that those who died chose to take those drugs, acting as if it isn’t their problem, just one of those things that happen to people who make bad choices.

Firm commitments and agreements seem to be things that are falling by the wayside. Some people apply for credit, and don’t pay off their debt. Some apply for, and receive, loans for whatever reasons or needs, but some don’t live up to their end of the agreement regarding paying them back. Some people make business, career, relationship and/or other commitments with people, but don’t fulfill their promise to keep them. Some say they’ll do something, but fail to see their promise to the end. That is not to say that in all of these situations there might not be some extreme circumstance which may hinder or block a person from being able to complete their end of the bargain, but it appears that in many cases, some people just seem to take the easier way out of their commitment, shrugging their shoulders with the attitude of “oh well.”

Over the years, things that matter, or mattered, now seem to be just matter of fact things, and we hear more and more, that “it’s happening everywhere,” or “what’s the big deal,” and some have become way too accepting of these things happening in their (our) lifetime.

We keep hearing these days about “This Group Matters” and “That Group Matters.” Truth is that ALL Groups Matter. Truth is that diminishing the instances of crime, injustice and intolerance can happen, if we shift the attitude back to believing these things matter, and not treating them as just a matter of fact.

One more motivational saying I’ve come across in my reading is “If it is to be, it is up to me.” We all need do what we can to help the situation rather than sit back and wait for the solution to come to us, and not just sluff it off as a matter of fact.