Americans in previous generations were taught that our nation was to be an example of freedom (including responsibility for oneself) to the rest of the world. They passed that American way of thinking down to me. We were not taught to flaunt freedom in the faces of other countries or to be falsely prideful of who we are as a nation. We were taught to bring hope to the rest of the world. Somewhere along the way, the notion that we are too prideful, too self important as a nation, too free for our own good took hold. Suddenly we were supposed to be ashamed of being Americans. Who will we choose to be in the future? Who will you choose to be?