We've all heard this saying so why don't we act on it?

Over the past few years, I have become aware of a growing movement in schools focused on happiness. The thinking seems to be that if kids are having fun, if they are happy, they will learn more. If kids are bored with a topic, they shouldn't have to do it.

This is a nice image of school and I am sympathetic to parents who want their kids to be happy but this idea is total hogwash. People are motivated by pain, plain and simple. If they dont feel the pain, they dont make the change. Trying to avoid pain is human nature so it is understandable but our decision to take the easy road in all things is leading us into serious problems.

We all have examples of avoiding the right thing because the wrong thing is too easy. Have you ever been in a crappy or boring relationship, that you didn't end? The pain of breaking up was much bigger in your mind than the pleasure of a better partner so you stayed put. For months. Maybe even for years. Another example is something you want from your boss or your spouse but you never ask for it, you never demand it. The pain of asking, the fear of making demands is to great so you live with things as they are.

You can see this phenomenon in politics too, just look at the Iraq war. Wars are expensive and difficult. People die and bombs cost a lot fo money. In the past, presidents have faced these facts; they raised taxes to pay for the war effort and they told the nation that we need to sacrifice for the greater good. Not so for President Bush who did the opposite. He didn't tell us to sacrifice, he assured us it would be not sacrifice. He urged use to keep spending as we had, to go on with life as usual, and he gave us a tax cut, not a tax increase. Why? Because he knew that if war was painful, we wouldn't support it as much.

The irony is that the Administration is doing the exact opposite thing to the Iraqis. After 2 years of occupation, the administration is now saying that things are too comfortable for the Iraqis. They dont have to fix things themselves because we will do it for them. We need to pull out troops and make them feel the pain so that they will make changes.

Another example is losing weight. You want to know the secret to losing weight? Stop eating and start exercising. Take the stairs now the elevator; if you have to drive, park in the back not the front of the parking lot; eat half of that meal and take the other half home. When you are uncomfortably hungry, you are on the right track.

We American's are the fattest, laziest, least healthy culture on Earth because we have to consciously choose to be otherwise. We have to force ourselves to eat less, we have to force ourselves to exercise. We have to force ourselves to go without - and we cannot do it. We dont have the willpower. The status quo is too comfortable so we get larger every year.

None of this is new, so why bring it up? I bring it up because of my fear that if we dont get some social discipline soon, we are going to be facing some serious problems. I see the signs all the time now so it is on my mind a lot.

Life is good here but how long can that last? Other countries dont have too much to eat. They dont have credit for plasma tvs and huge houses. Other countries are hungry. Their status quo is painful and that motivates them to work and innovate. Our status quo is great so we sit around the ranch in Crawford and ponder our own greatness.

We are accustomed to being at the top of the social food-chain but how long can we stay there as luxury saps our will to compete? What goes up, must come down as the system rebalances itself. The problem is that those changes have a real toll in human terms. To compete on price, our workers will have to take pay cuts but will they? It's more likely they will demand the status quo until forced to change by bankruptcy or total failure.

If you dont make changes on your own with discipline, eventually something comes along and makes it for you, like a heart attack.

As an American who likes living here, Im not eager to see that heart attack.