I Won't Watch

I don't plan to watch or listen to anything this weekend through early next week on or about 9/11. I've long had my fill and while I agree those who lost family, friends or co-workers have a right to mark the anniversary, the rest of us don't need to mark except as a major event in our life and then get on with life today.

What's the old saying we like to use when we're knocked down and hurt? Like, "Get over it." Yeah, melodramatic and over dramatic, but still fitting. The events of 9/11 knocked us down, so why do we keep wanting to dwell on the hurt and pain? Why do we still want to hate? Want to express our anger at people long since gone?

Al Qaeda is almost gone from Afghanistan and Pakistan. The global Al Qaeda network arose from Osama Bin Laden's network in other countries, so let's focus there than on the past. It's time we grew up to face our new realities instead of hating ghost of events past. The future is in front of us, not behind us.

I think the memorial at One World Trade Center is a good idea, we, like every society, build monuments to our past. That's not new, it's human, but people remember those lives lost out of respect, out of honor, out of love, and not out of hate, not out of anger, but out of a sense of our own and time's reality.

In short, it's time we got real and kept the focus on the future, looking back when it's fitting and proper, but not as a constant reminder preventing us from moving forward. I will. Do we really have a choice?