Stop and Smell the Coffee.

• Author: LEWIS, DAVID

WHY IT'S IMPORTANT TO WAKE UP AND SMELL THE ROSES

I'm reading a book.

(Applause.)

I'm reading Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America, written circa 1840, on the Net, via my free membership in Boulder-based NetLibrary. (Check it out: www.netlibrary.com.) I haven't gotten far, but already I've been filled with enough insight to write this column.

Democracy in America reminds me of a few ways in which we Americans are Americans, and how that's never going to change. It is March, which passes for the depths of winter here in Colorado: The holidays are a memory, the credit card bills have arrived, the legislature is in session. You get a day off next Memorial Day. Buckle down, people, it's reality time and you're too busy waking up to smell the coffee to stop and smell the roses.

"Each workman, standing alone, endeavors simply to gain the greatest possible quantity of money at the least possible cost. The will of the customer is then his only limit," wrote de T., who was a very wise man.

Which reminded me of a couple of moments from my days in the Former Soviet Union, namely the Kyrgyz Republic:

A couple of years ago, I was teaching journalism at American University in Kyrgyzstan to a class of 10 or so young women. For various reasons post-Soviet journalism seemed to be a predominantly feminine pursuit, even though the most often-asked question was, "Do reporters in America worry a lot about being murdered?"

Prior to class I had worked myself into a state because, a) somebody brought a copy of the International Herald Tribune into the library and my media-starved life; and b) the Trib ran a story declaring that U.S. workers had surpassed Japanese workers in average hours worked per week. We were No. 1 again. I was jazzed. I ran into the classroom and announced the good news. My students looked stricken. "That's so awful," one groaned.

A few days later I was conferring with a staffer in the World Bank, where I briefly had taught English. The staffer, No. 2 in the bank hierarchy, was well-educated and beautiful. She told me the story of how her grandmother, on her way with her family to China from Uzbekistan, was kidnapped on horseback by her...