Keller @ Large: It's Time For Leaders To Act Like Grown-Ups

BOSTON (CBS) - It's not easy being a grown-up.

You have to get up and go to work every day, even if you just don't feel like getting out of bed. On the job, you have to navigate sometimes-difficult interactions with colleagues or clients in a professional manner, putting your own personal feelings and impulses aside in the service of maintaining working relationships.

And you don't usually get to scratch whatever itch you might have when you come home. Anyone in a successful marriage knows that it's all about compromise, give-and-take, being selfless at times when it would be easier to be selfish.

And then there's parenting, the most important and demanding job any grown-up can have, where you have to be a role model, leader and nurturer, all the time and all at the same time.

Yes, it isn't easy being a grown-up. And it's a challenge that is proving too much for just about everybody in Washington right now.

It takes a grown-up to share power and seek compromise when you have the upper hand, to place country and comity ahead of ego-gratification. The Republicans are failing completely at this so far.

It takes a grown-up to set your resentment and bitterness aside when you lose, and find a way to move forward and work with the winners. The Democrats are utter failures at this so far.

As for the rest of us, I see a sharp trend toward mimicking the sorry behavior of our alleged leaders.

And you wonder what will happen if grown-ups don't emerge soon to take charge.

Listen to Jon's commentary: