708. Seeing America Through Fresh Eyes

Hello everybody, welcome back to another episode of The Way the World Works. So we record these a couple weeks, sometimes before they actually air. So as of right now, while I'm recording this, the World Cup is going on. And the World Cup is soccer tournament, it's like the global soccer tournament, and people come from all over the world wherever the host city is, what they call it, and they get host cities.

But this year, they all happen to be in North America, which means there are a lot of people from all over the world. I believe soccer is the biggest sport in the whole world, those called football, I guess, in other places. But everybody, there are so many people from all over the world, all coming to America right now.

And it's been really interesting because you're seeing a lot of TikTokers, a lot of people online posting videos of their first time in America, their first experience in America. And what they're posting about has been really refreshing and really kind of heartwarming to a lot of people. So there's one guy in particular, his name is Freddie, he is visiting from Germany. And he's the one everybody's talking about right now because he was posting how big his

hotel rooms are and how cool gas stations were, awful house, all these things. It's been really refreshing because we take things for granted sometimes when we're living in them all the time. Like have you ever gotten homesick before when you go out of town or you're visiting someone else? You know, maybe right before you go on that trip, you're really eager to leave, right?

You're sick of your bedroom, you're sick of your toys, you're sick of the things you see every day. Because even though something is exciting at first, like a new toy, over time you just get used to it. And so it's not as exciting anymore. But then what happens when you go away and you are gone for like a week or more, you start

really missing home and all of a sudden little things that you took for granted are so exciting when you go back. I know every time I go to Europe, the water bottles are different there and I know that sounds weird. But the caps don't come all the way off. You take it off and it like hangs on it and it's so weird.

And then when you come back into the United States, you're like, water bottles. And even, you know, I live near Washington DC right now, but I'm from Utah and I, when I lived there, didn't really, didn't really appreciate how beautiful the mountains were because I was seeing them every day. And now when I go back home, I'm just like, oh, they're so beautiful. And so that's what's kind of happening right now in America is the things that we take

for granted, like a waffle house or these things like really nice hotel rooms that are pretty decently priced. We're forgetting how extraordinary these things are because it's just our way of life. And so it's taken these, you know, foreigners coming from other countries, visiting our country for the World Cup to remind us how great, how great we have it and all the wonderful things that we're able to experience that other countries don't have.

And even deeper than that, why is it that we have these things? Why, why do we get to be so fortunate? And it's because of our incredible founding of our history and the things that America has built on. So let's get into it a little bit more. I think when we think about visiting another place and being blown away by, you know, a different

city or a different country, we think of big things, right? Like maybe if you come to America, you see the Grand Canyon or the White House or these things that are our big things, big, you know, landmarks and you think that's what's going to make somebody excited. And that's why I think it's so cool to watch all these visitors posting their videos because it's little things, right?

Like I said, it was a gas station. It was Walthus. It was our highways. It was a sunset and it's just so cool seeing all this through fresh eyes, through new eyes because we really do forget about all these things that are around us. And at first maybe we're laughing like, okay, you think this gas station is cool.

And by the way, the gas station was buckies and I don't know if all of you familiar with what buckies is. It's like a Texas institution really, but it's starting to spread to other parts of the country. It's like the Walmart of gas stations. What I mean by that is it's huge. It is huge.

It is overwhelming. You can get, I think there's like food service there. There's like aisles and aisles of just things. It's crazy. It's like a destination in itself. And so when people walk in that, I mean, even I who went into my first buckies probably

only a year ago walked in and was like, okay, this is crazy. So I can't even imagine somebody doing that from another country. And so they're seeing these things and we might think like, okay, this is silly. This is a highway. Like we get to see these things all the time. It's just such a good reminder.

And one reason I'm so happy that this is happening now is, you know, this is still by the time you guys hear this, it might be past the 4th of July, but it is still America 250. You know, even though Independence Day is past, we're still in the 250th year of our country. But, you know, there's a lot of, there's a lot of people who criticize America. And I want to make it clear that free speech is incredible.

And so you're allowed to criticize things. We should be criticizing our leaders. We should be doing that. But there's a lot of people that have just started saying that they're, you know, embarrassed of the country because, you know, the founders had slaves or they were imperfect men and Oh, colonizers.

And you hear all the, this, you know, really negative dialogue about America. And I think that we have forgotten how lucky we are to live here and how lucky we are to have all these things. There was another video I saw posted where it was like a group of people eating. I think they were from somewhere in Asia and they went to a Mexican restaurant and they got free chips and salsa and they were like, wait a second.

We didn't order these. What is this? And they're like, Oh, it comes there for free. So it's just these little things that again, like in the grand scheme of things is living in a country where we sometimes get free chips and salsa at a restaurant, like a revolutionary thing.

Maybe not to us, but to other people, it's pretty great. But what is it? Like if we were to sum up everything, is it chips and salsa? Is it a very big gas station? No, it's abundance. That's what these people are realizing and recognizing abundance, meaning prosperity, all these things,

this innovation that's around us and why is that innovation here? Because of wonderful entrepreneurs who thought of something innovative and brought it to life because we have for the most part a government that allows us to innovate. Now, if we were talking about this from the perspective of Americans wanting to better our country, we could say there is a way too much government intervention. We need to get it out.

We need to encourage even more entrepreneurship. But I want you to suspend that for a minute and think about America's entrepreneurship as opposed to other places where this isn't as encouraged. This isn't something that people have access to. We forget this concept of the American dream where you can come to America with $2 in your pocket and work hard and raise up and become somebody successful.

We kind of roll our eyes at that now and there's a lot of people who might tell you it doesn't exist. It absolutely still does. And I think that it's proof of that when you see all these people coming here and commenting on the things that we have and are things everything, no, absolutely not. But I think we forget the prosperous abundance that we're surrounded by all the time.

And as much as there are complaints of like, oh, the middle class is disappearing, things like that, our middle class is so much better off than even some of the wealthier people in other nations. It's just such a good thing to keep in mind. And again, the reason we have these things is because of our incredible founding. I've talked about this in other episodes, but part of the reason the colonists decided

to rebel is because they didn't like the king and parliament interfering in things. They were sick of all those years that the king had kind of left them alone. They were able to be entrepreneurs, be innovators, be merchants on the sea. And then all of a sudden the king's like, oh, I ignored you guys for a while because I forgot how much money I could get from taxes. So I'm going to now crack down the, you know, crack down and start texting you and putting

all these regulations. And they were like, no, because the fact that we were able to be free to innovate and to be entrepreneurs, that's how we became successful. And so this idea of letting a person be free to provide or to create abundance for other people, that's part of this American lifestyle. That's part of these American ideals.

And so it's, it's really important that we not only see these videos as charming and as a reminder of like, oh my goodness, I did, I took this sunset for granted. I'm going to go look at it. That's great too. But why? And the sunset maybe is a little different than abundance and entrepreneurship, but a waffle

house or a restaurant, right? We can say the reason this exists and the reason that it's so incredible is because we live in a country that was founded on free market, on entrepreneurship, on, you know, letting somebody pursue happiness be prosperous. And so it is such a good reminder, especially in this day and age where people want to say horrible things about America and free speech, they should be allowed to absolutely.

But when we are making critiques, you know, I, I am not somebody who's ever shied away from critiquing our government. But like I said, every time I go out of the country and I come back, I'm just like, wow, look at everything we have, like, look at these amazing things, look at these water bottles that I like so much. And it's great to, to appreciate that.

And so I think this is a really good reminder of not just like, oh, how lucky we have it, but of the foundation of the American history that let us have all this prosperity. So I will leave it there. As always, don't forget to like and subscribe to the podcast. And until next time, I will talk to you later.