Dear Next Generation: Study History and Seek Excellence

Dear Next Generation, an advice column from readers to young people. Photo by Shutterstock

Some advice in quick-time. I refer to an old military abbreviation for moving quickly and efficiently. Not an Apple app.

My advice is mostly about YOU, the next generation. You will lead us into the future ... and you hold the key to how the future may look. Your character, your education, your value systems, your wisdom and endurance, your ability to “hang in when the going gets tough.”

First, study history. From many sources. Don’t scan it, watch it on TV, or listen to lectures about it. Probe its corners. Look for truth. It’s all related, somehow. Learn to ask hard questions and expect truthful answers. Do not swallow narratives blindly. After all, those narratives may be shaped by one-sided people with skewed agendas. The agendas may vary, but many are “informed” by 20/20 hindsight.

The most reliable sources for any history are the observations, documents, and writings of those who lived it “real-time.” As a parent and teacher, I remind students that history is rightly judged through the eyes and standards in existence at the time it happened. Judging it 20 years or 200 years after the fact and based on current standards is misdirection—Monday morning quarterbacking. Ever seen a football score changed on the Monday after the weekend game?

And by the way, what’s to be gained by tearing down a nation rather than working to make it better by rolling up your sleeves and pitching in for a team win?

For some good insights into the history of possibilities, I recommend “A History of the American People” by British historian Paul B. Johnson, CBE, who coincidentally began his journalistic career as a leftist.

History’s “bottom line.” A stalwart in the perennial fight for human freedom once observed the following principle:

“Dwell in the past and you’ll lose an eye; forget the past and you’ll lose both eyes.” That was said by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Russian author and dissident famous for many novels, including “The Gulag Archipelago,“ ”August 1914,” ”Cancer Ward,” and others.

Second. Tie everything you do to your effort to make your world a better place, not only for yourself, but for everyone around you. The maxim “A rising tide floats all boats” is still true.

Third. Get used to the fact—yes, it’s a fact—that you will receive opposition from some corner or other; more if you are doing something that is good and significant. Don’t run for a “safe space.” Instead, muster your courage, knuckle down, and stay the course. I like to remember the trite quote, attributed to various people, that, nonetheless, offers a place to hang one’s hat in tough times:

“Everything will be alright in the end. If it’s not alright, it’s not the end.”

Fourth. Take care of your physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health by disciplined consumption of healthy materials. Remember that the best defense is a good offense. It’s about balance. Preserving your health in all those categories is easier, cheaper, and more effective than recovering from self-induced illness. Always.

Do the hard things it takes to make that happen. At age 77, I still do strenuous physical work or workouts for at least three hours, six days a week—usually with the added benefit of accomplishment that makes life better for my family. While many of my friends grow heavier and softer every day on their diets of TV, movies, ice cream, and cake, I stay healthier and happier with work that some tell me I “ought not do.” Say what?

Good health is that simple, barring some tragedy beyond your control. No guarantee, “no free lunch.”

Read good fiction and nonfiction, lots of it. Talk to older, more experienced people who have found success at some level. Don’t limit those talks to people who have attained visible, material success. Find folks who enjoy a decent lifestyle and peace of mind simultaneously with being productive. You'll be surprised at the insights you gain.

My personal history roughly parallels many of those already published in this column. Similar big picture with varying details. I was reared in a large family in the ‘40s–’60s. Fourth of five kids. Chores, hard work, and the exacting standards of many adults led me—and sometimes pushed me—toward a productive life as a child and an adult. Parents, grandparents, schoolteachers, church and scout leaders, and neighbors—all had a hand. We enjoyed the following benefits in our years at home:

• Rigorous education in public schools, including corporal punishment.
• Equally rigorous education in church.
• Respect for law and order. Respect for elders. Respect for authority. Respect for others.
• Punishment when the respect lapsed.
• After-school athletics with tough coaches.
• Summer jobs, childhood jobs, low wages, and high standards of performance, whether I was delivering groceries or newspapers by bicycle, mowing and raking lawns, working in our family’s garden, and so on. In high school, I engaged in basketball and track, then after dinner, I went to work for a janitorial service until late each evening. Later, I got a job as a stock boy in a supermarket, and one summer, I painted the outside of our large, frame home. There were other jobs as well. One summer in a furniture factory, graveyard shift.

We had no car in my early years, no TV until I was 14. My dad was a farm boy with an eighth-grade education, my mom had a high school diploma. Gifted with determination and lots of talent, they worked hard, long hours to make ends meet.

Neighborhood eyes on watch were everywhere in my youth. Moms and dads all kept us “in tow” by their mere presence. We knew they would reel us in quickly if we got too far out of line. Whether playing sandlot ball, cops ‘n robbers, or hide-and-seek, we knew we were watched. In my opinion, that’s a standard worth paying forward. It tends to promote community, and keeps everyone observing at least minimum standards.

As a walk-on basketball player at community college, I earned a scholarship. Became captain of the team. Never a standout, but a journeyman who enjoyed the game and the teamwork. In my third year of college, I joined the new two-year Army ROTC program. The rigorous training was right up my alley and I excelled. Became my college brigade’s cadet commander in my senior year and graduated as a Distinguished Military Graduate.

Immediately on active duty during the Vietnam years, I married my lovely sweetheart of two years. We reared three beautiful daughters during our career paths and have stuck together for 54 years, happy as ever. We are blessed by our Creator.

Now, in our seventh decade of life, we watch for ways to improve our knowledge and skills, our inner peace, ways to help others, to make things work better, to challenge conventional ideas that don’t work. We enjoy time with our children and grandchildren as well as our neighborhood and longtime friends.

Grace and peace to all.

Sternes Stubblefield, Arkansas

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What advice would you like to give to the younger generations?

We call on all of our readers to share the timeless values that define right and wrong and pass the torch, if you will, through your wisdom and hard-earned experience. We feel that the passing down of this wisdom has diminished over time and that only with a strong moral foundation can future generations thrive.

Send your advice, along with your full name, state, and contact information to [email protected] or mail it to: Next Generation, The Epoch Times, 229 W. 28th St., Floor 7, New York, NY 10001.