They left Earth, and after some time, they started having children and raising them on board the spaceship, all the while, telling their children about the new civilization they would build when they reach their destination.
Occasionally, there would be some problem with the fuel or food reserves, but careful rationing would see them through the crisis, and eventually, they would get back on track. The children watched the adults do this, and learned, by rote, to imitate them.
More time passed, and the children eventually grew up, took over the operations of the ship, and had children and grandchildren of their own. The original crew got old and died off, until one day, there was no one left on the ship who had ever experienced life on a planet.
Eventually, the day came when the new planet to be colonized came into view. It was exactly as expected, with plenty of air and water and vegetation, and the supplies stored on board would help them build their new civilization. The youngest of the crew and passengers look to the planet with excited anticipation.
However, among the eldest of the crew, there was a problem. They didn't seem excited or even interested in the planet. They just kept going about their duties in operating the ship. When someone pointed out that they were approaching the planet, they simply made a course adjustment to avoid the "obstacle," just as their parents had shown them to do in the event of a meteor or asteroid.
The ship continued on a course that would avoid the planet. The young ones saw what has happening, and they argued with the elders that if they did not reverse the course correction, they would miss their destination. The elders replied that they were trained by their parents to maintain life on board the ship, and that is what they would do. The new colony, to them, was something that only existed in stories about the future, and not something to be actually experienced. The young ones realized that the elders had become so accustomed to life on board the ship, that they could not imagine living any other way.
The young ones argued that the ship did not have enough food or fuel to last forever, and that if they missed their destination, they would eventually run out. The elders remembered their parents rationing supplies when there was a crisis, and after a short while, things returned to normal. The elders assured the young people that this situation was no different.
Finally, in a desperate plea, the young ones begged the elders to land on the planet, let the young ones off, and then allow the elders to live out the rest of their lives inside the parked spaceship. The elders refused, assuring the young people that all people, as they get older, come to prefer living aboard the ship, and the elders could not risk the young people making a mistake such as leaving for the planet.
The spaceship continued drifting along, missing the planet. The people rationed their resources. As food and medicine ran out, the crew increased the rationing, causing an entire generation to suffer hardship of disease and famine, nearly wiping them out. When the last of the elders grew old and died, and the younger members of the crew, having now grown old, took command.
They burned up the very last of their fuel reserves by turning the ship around and heading back toward the planet, which by now, would be a long journey to return to. Time passed, and the children of the next generation grew up and joined the new elders in maintaining the ship, still ravaged by disease and famine.
When the ship returned to the planet, it had insufficient fuel to settle into an orbit before landing. The crew went straight into the braking thrusters, forcing a risky crash landing, in which many were either killed or injured, and much vital equipment was damaged.
The survivors set out onto the new planet. Their new home was beautiful, and after much equipment repairing and scavenging for supplies, they began to build their colony, just as had been planned.
The crew remarked on just how many of their friends and family missed out on seeing the beautiful new planet, how many years had been wasted drifting through space only to turn the ship around, and how much trouble could have been avoided if they had landed while they still had enough fuel and supplies. If only the first generation born on the ship had not become so set in their ways. If only their parents had done a better job of teaching them WHY to maintain the ship instead of HOW to maintain the ship, had not failed to inherit their parents' spirit of adventure and curiosity, had not become so routine as to fail to think logically. If only those who had spent their lives living in a particular way aboard the spaceship had not closed their minds to changing the status quo.
So too, in modern America, we see the world changing around us. We see a future that is different from the world we grew up in, economically, socially, technologically, politically, religiously and culturally. We see the needs for reforms in labor, transportation, education, agriculture, taxation, electoral procedures, environmental protection, health care and foreign policy. And yet, our nation's progress is being held back by those in Washington who are too old and too set in their ways to stand aside and allow change to happen. Do we really want to allow this nation to drift through an age of recession, unemployment, poverty, pollution, war, extremism, traffic congestion, job stress, wasteful spending, ovetaxation of the poor and undertaxation of the rich, unwarranted invasions of privacy, and the exploitation of those incarcerated for victimless crimes, only to reverse course after the oldest career politicians have died off, only then to implement the changes in our nation that should have been implemented many years earlier? How many lives can be saved, how many freedoms protected, how many lives made more meaningful, how many hardships avoided, and how many dreams realized, if we just open our minds and hearts to the idea of embracing change rather than delaying it?
My story does not end with a description of how the colonists set up their new civilization on the new planet, and my plea to be open to change does not specify what sort of new system of government or economics will replace the old. The moral to this story is not to prescribe the perfect society, but instead, to be open to change.
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