Is Security overrated?

I admit that I have feelings on both sides of what I am to debate here, but it is an important subject to me at this time in my life.

Tonight I sat through a meeting at my church where we debated purchasing a house across from our building where we currently own a property next to it. There were many heart felt and passionate opinions. Like most churches and charities, we do have financial woes from time to time. At some future time we will turn these properties into parking. Many of the people expressing opinions about the risk involved in this move. This can not be brushed aside. We are a large church, but in the heart of our city and very little parking. It is very difficult for some families and elderly to walk from the city lot around the corner. Ultimately we decided to make the purchase, as we need to control our destiny with these properties, even if we never make them parking.

The idea of security brought me back to my childhood. My father always advised me to make the safe move. Never quit a job without another to go to. All in all sage advice. I remember a time when I left a job for another that paid a fraction of the old. I was changing careers to one that I felt I would enjoy more. Time showed it to be a good move as now I make three times the salary that I left, 13 years ago.

As a society we are very comfortable. We often look our security and are not quick to make risky moves. I can sight many areas of public policy where issues are facing us in the future such as Social Security, Medicare, Healthcare where changes inevitably must be made. These will require risk. Likewise we are facing unprecedented challenges to our security. A global economy has brought extreme competition for our workers. In the course of this change many good people have been left unemployed.

Societies are made up of individuals. For a society to risk security for a possible better life down the road each person must shoulder that risk. I am perplexed as we become a mature society, that the hunger that us a great people, has in large measure turned to a fragile, careful society. I fear, that in the future, our unwillingness to take on risk will ultimately make life difficult. If our children do not find a way to rediscover the hunger of our founders, will we fade to irrelevance? I hope not but I fear so. We have a drastic shortage of scientists and engineers. In The World is Flat, Thomas Friedman seems to blame this on a shortage of government spending in the area of the sciences. (In fairness I don't mean to imply that this is his only reason he attributes. I highly recommend the book). I tend to think that our developing generation is missing a sense of hunger. I remember being in high school, and instead of challenging myself with something rewarding like engineering or science, I chose the easy way out. It ended up not being the easy way out. I had to finish my degree part time while working full time. I see more and more young people choosing the easy way out. I pray this does not happen to my children. I pray we do not avoid risk that will make us a better people, for the reason of false security.