TTT (Things Take Time)

For many years, I have used the abbreviation TTT for my book Thirty True Things Everyone Needs to Know Now (2018)—and I still encourage people to read that book. But this post is about a different meaning of TTT, one that I learned from a Japanese friend decades ago: things take time. 

The Presidential Election: TTT

As everyone knows, the U.S. elections were held two days ago, on November 3. But the results of the presidential election are not certain even now, although it is most likely that the Biden/Harris ticket will narrowly win.

The election results for most states won’t be “officially certified” until November 23 or later. And actually, the result of the presidential election is not official until January 6, the day a joint session of Congress meets to count electoral votes (cast on December 18) and declare the winner.

Things take time, and this year it is taking a much longer time than usual for the apparent results of the presidential election to be ascertained—and who knows what will happen between now and Dec. 18 or Jan. 6.

There will be recounts, lawsuits, angry tweets, and falsehoods told by the likely loser, who late on election night made numerous false and misleading statements in speaking to his supporters (see here).

The Return to Normalcy: TTT

As I wrote in my previous (Oct. 30) blog post, the election of Joe Biden would be the beginning of a return to normalcy as the many abnormalities I mentioned in that post—and that was by no means a complete list—would be righted.

However, even if Biden is inaugurated on January 20, current adverse conditions in the nation won’t get better immediately. Things take time.

The ongoing effects of the pandemic, the lingering economic/unemployment challenges for many, and current cynicism about government, etc. will take a long time to overcome and for there to be a sense of normalcy again.

Some, no doubt, will be disappointed, feeling that change/recovery is happening too slowly. There will likely be criticism of the new administration for not doing enough fast enough.

But, again, things take time—and patience seems to be much more difficult for us USAmericans than for the people of Japan, whose national beginning is said to have been in 660 BCE, a very long time before 1776.

The Re-building of Environmental Protection: TTT

Over the past nearly four years, we have seen much that has been wrecked in this country—and it takes much longer to build, or re-build, something than to wreck it.

The lead article in the October 31 issue of The Economist reports, “Of the 225 major executive actions in a studiously catalogued list of the Trump administration’s deregulation 70 . . . are environmental rollbacks.”

With broader criteria, an articlein the Oct. 30 Washington Post claims that “as Trump’s first term winds to a close, he has weakened or wiped out more than 125 rules and policies aimed at protecting the nation’s air, water and land, with 40 more rollbacks underway.”

There are numerous critical challenges that the new President faces. Of immediate urgency, of course, is controlling the spread of the covid-19 pandemic and dealing with the lingering problems caused by it.

But perhaps the biggest challenge, the one that is most critical for the future well-being of the country and the world, is re-building programs necessary for protecting the environment—and then taking bold measures to combat global warming.

Things take time—but dealing wisely and effectively with environmental issues is something that needs to be done sooner rather than later.