The Inconvenient Truth: We cannot pray for the cure while protecting the disease

A doctor will tell you that the most difficult patient to treat is not the one who is unaware of his illness. It is the one who knows exactly what is wrong, understands the consequences, has access to treatment, and still defends the habits that are making him sick. Yet when whole societies behave in the same way, we tend to give it gentler names: politics, culture, loyalty, survival, or simply the way things are done. This is one of the most uncomfortable truths facing many developing societies, including our own. Our greatest difficulty is not that we fail to see what ails us. It is that we see it clearly, sometimes defend its causes, and still expect our children to inherit a healthy nation. We complain about corruption while admiring unexplained wealth that happens to benefit us. We condemn indiscipline while seeking exemptions from the rules that inconvenience us.