With everything going on in the United States these days, this Independence Day was a great day for me to reflect. I have often felt very lucky to have been born in this great country and I have realized there are numerous reasons why I feel this way. From our religious freedoms, the right to bear arms, vote and being able to determine the course of our lives, every American should be very thankful to be able to live in the USA. 

This first point is very important to me because I come from a religious family. In my opinion, the belief that we have the freedom to assemble as a congregation stems from our founding fathers. Religious freedom may not have been a driving force of the Revolution, but I still believe God played a role in how our country we know today was set up back then.

I am thankful religion was important enough to them to include in our Constitution so that I and every other American are able to worship our deity however we see fit. For truly we are “One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

The founding fathers also believed we should not give too much power to the government. This is why we have things like checks and balances within our government, citizens voting to elect important government members and the Constitution to control what the government can and cannot do. Giving the citizens the ability to arm themselves is also important to be able to defend themselves against the government. This was a driving force in the Revolution as the British government started to place armed soldiers within the colonist’s cities and limit their ability to obtain weapons.

I am thankful they realized the importance of protecting the citizens then and today from the fears of effects of government getting too big. 

However, the greatest part of America might be the ability of every American to determine the course of his or her life. No matter where you are from or how you were raised, anyone can make themselves a success if they put in the hard work and dedication. We are not told by the government what jobs we can or cannot hold. It is up to us to make our own decisions regarding what we do.

No matter what life may throw at me, I try every day to remember I am extremely blessed to be able to call the United States “home.” Nowhere else in the world are people more free or more able to do what they want, when they want. It is extremely important that every American remember that we have it pretty darn good in comparison to other countries around the world and do their best to make the most of it.

Let us all go about our lives with the enthusiasm of NBC’s “The Office” character, Creed Bratton, when he says, “I already won the lottery, I was born in the US of A, baby!”