Moving slowly, but steadily forward

Did instant gratification begin with the microwave when cooking a meal went from an hour to mere minutes?

Can our desire to see and do everything now be blamed on automobiles, giving us personal access to go wherever we want?

Are our shortened attention spans blamed on these giant advances in technology, making it possible to have almost endless entertainment and information at our fingertips?

We live in a world of instant gratification, where waiting for something to happen is seen as a negative or working for something over the long haul is seen as drudgery.

But what would happen if we shifted that thinking to celebrating or at least accepting incremental progress - or change over the long haul?

It is great to see huge strides in improvement but that isn’t usually how things happen.

Instead, progress is small and tiny or slow and steady.

For a wonderful example, look at Rosa Parks.

If you didn’t attend any of the Nebraska Chautauqua events in McCook this last weekend, you missed out. There were wonderful, fun events and enthusiastic, informational speakers, bringing the 1950s to life.

One of them was Becky Stone, who portrayed Rosa Parks. Most people know the story of Rosa not giving up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama in 1955 and the boycotts and eventual changes to the system that happened afterward.

But did you know that she also got kicked off the bus in 1943 for refusing to move to the back of the bus (or more specifically for sitting in the same row as a white man)?

12 years. 12 years between these events. But still she persisted. She didn’t give up.

Instead, she quietly and methodically fought for what she knew was right over the years and over her entire lifetime.

Yes, there is a time and a need for immediate action but as the Rosa Park story shows, even those actions require years of perseverance afterward.

Of course, we would love to see things happen overnight. We would like for projects to happen instantaneously. We would live for funding to magically appear.

But that is like winning the lottery. It happens rarely and to very few people.

Instead, projects take time and research and careful consideration before moving forward.

It’s Aesop’s fable of the tortoise and the hare. While the hare bragged about how fast he was and proved it at the beginning of the race, eventually he tired and needed a rest. The tortoise was slow and methodical, eventually passing the hare and winning the race.

But for a more modern interpretation, consider the situation McCook finds itself in.

McCook is looking at moving forward on one of its biggest projects in years with the building of a new outdoor swimming pool and possibly developing an entirely new area for ballparks and green space.

This is long overdue, but any progress is better than none at all.

There has been years of research, hours and hours of meetings and endless discussions about not just these recreational projects but also walking trails, pickle ball courts, basketball courts and playgrounds.

And now that dedication to these projects may finally come to fruition. It hasn’t happened yet, but there is movement. Small movement but movement nonetheless which will hopefully turn into large achievements in the near future.

It is true that we occasionally need that instant gratification. But true, long-lasting progress happens slowly and steadily over time by dedicated individuals, dedicated communities, dedicated organizations who are working together to make McCook an even better place to call home.