My family goes way back in United States history.

My ancestors were among the earliest immigrants, settlers in New Jersey.  They were no strangers to hard work there in the 1600s and 1700s.

That history all but embedded in our DNA the work ethic we usually equate with the Puritans of New England.  But that hard work and humility probably was typical of anyone who made a go of it in America in the early days.

Without hard work, tenacity, and self-motivation they would have suffered the effects of hunger, thirst and exposure to the elements.  They would have died, but they persevered, not just by their hard work, but in their Christian faith that taught them generosity, forgiveness, love of neighbor as well as enemy, and to abide by the teachings of Christ as they walked humbly with their God.

By the 1900s, that family from which I came had made a pretty good go of it.  Their hard work had paid off in higher education, better jobs off the farm, whether in better-paid factory jobs or in white collar areas, and in providing that their children would have even better lives than they had had.

So it was that I was fortunate to be able to go to college.  (You might call it the accident of my birth that shaped some of my destiny.)  My own folks couldn’t afford to pay all the expenses associated with it, but Grandpa Richards had provided the money that would pay four years of tuition.  Ma and Pop pulled together the money each semester for room and board.  And it was expected of me (and I delivered through the work ethic they had taught) to earn during the summers whatever money I would require for textbooks, labs, and everyday living expenses like toothpaste, shampoo, soap, and some modicum of entertainment.

It was a group effort.  And never did I forget that I couldn’t have done it alone.

By contrast, I knew of a young man my age who attended the Ag-Tech across the valley from the university who had to go it alone for the education he wanted.

He was a farm kid who wanted to continue the family tradition of earning his living off the fertile land of upstate New York.  He wanted to be educated in ways of successful farming that included animal husbandry and business management of an agricultural enterprise.

He didn’t have a well-to-do grandfather to provide tuition for the two-year program.  His folks were local farmers who could provide room and board at home while he commuted.  But to have the money for tuition and textbooks and whatever other expenses he might incur, he had to work other jobs outside that family farm.  The system he devised consisted of working really hard for a period of time that allowed him to save enough money for a semester of school.  Then he’d attend a semester, still working the family farm while he hit the books.  Another semester of hard labor, followed by a semester of study, and in four years’ time he had completed his two-year degree in agriculture.

Did he work harder for his education than I?  You bet your sweet patootie he did.  It took him harder work to get that two-year diploma than it took me to get my four-year degree.  And I think it deserves higher commendation for what he did all on his own than what I did with help.

But in the end, what does it mean, the manner by which each of us came to his and her education, as the way we use those educations to live our lives?

Some self-made men and women become champions for others to have an easier way than what they had.  They create foundations and scholarships to ease the financial hit of tuition.  They endow colleges and trade schools with money to enhance their programs of study that produce high quality graduates.  They become cheerleaders for higher education in general.

Other self-made men and women become embittered by their experiences, having had to work so hard against the odds that they bad-mouth loan programs, scholarships, grants and fellowships that assist young people (and these days not-so-young people) in getting that post-high school education they so desire.

I guess those feelings are valid.  After all, those feelings are their feelings, engendered by the harsh realities of their lives.

But I think they forget, sometimes, that one of the great things each generation can do for the next is to make the path easier.

I looked up the origin of the word society.  It comes from the Latin “societas” which is derived in turn from the noun “socius,” meaning “comrade, friend, ally.”  It describes a bond or an interaction between parties that are friendly, or at the least civil.  It is a term of community, not of political alliance.  It implies that people work in concert with each other to the mutual benefit of the group.  The way my family worked in concert to make a college education possible for me.

It’s my personal belief, in part due to that experience, that as human beings we are obligated to ease the way for others in all manner of life’s experiences.  It is why we feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, treat the sick and dying, tutor and school the children, and provide economic ways out of situations that were beyond the control of some people.  Without judgment.  Without self-pity.  But, instead, in gratefulness that we, ourselves, had the wherewithal to become successful ourselves, whether by our own, God-given initiative and hard labor, or by means of a caring social network of family and institutions.

I am aware that in many things in the United States, programs and ideas and plans have gone awry or become unwieldly, corrupt and incompetent.  And we can only blame ourselves and the people we elected for the situations we are in.

But it doesn’t mean throwing the baby out with the bath water, no matter how bad things may seem.

It means rolling up our collective sleeves and pitching in anywhere and everywhere we can to make things better.

It starts with voting, not abdicating our rights and privileges through apathy.

It continues by holding tight to our humanity, our sense that the other bipedal creatures roaming around this earth are human being like ourselves.  People who deserve safe food to eat, clean air to breath, clean water to drink and bathe in, a planet free of pollution (regardless of who is most at fault for it), and a planet with a future that doesn’t include its abandonment to live in space or underground.

And it includes the ideal of hope and the commitment that we do want to make the way easier for the children to come, and their children, and so on.

It is so convenient to withdraw into one’s self and wait for the world to implode.  It is so easy to fall prey to the demons of victimization, when most of us have it in us to fend them off.

We do live in society with one another.  We are interdependent upon each other.  It’s not dirty word or an undesirable concept.

Paul Simon, the song writer, once said “I am a rock.  I am an island.”

But he is wrong in that philosophy.

John Donne, the poet, said it best.  “No man is an island.”

We should revel in that reality, and wrap ourselves in its warmth.