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BLOOMINGTON, Ind.

Perhaps it was the searing image of former President George H.W. Bush groveling before the Japanese — first cajoling, then imploring the one-time enemy to bolster the U.S. economy by buying American goods — that ultimately shattered our illusion that America was No. 1.

In fact, the elder Bush's painfully embarrassing visit to Japan in early 1992 capped off a 20-year slide during which Americans went from leading Europeans and the Japanese to closing factories and losing good-paying jobs.

When the world wanted to see the future, it looked to America, emulating its practices and policies. Following America's lead, Western Europe and Japan raced ahead and attained the good life in the 1980s.

As a result, American workers suffered the consequences — losing jobs, opportunity and hope. Then came a startling surprise.

By the mid-1990s, America had won back leadership: Economic growth, productivity and job creation were at record levels; American laborers were again toiling and prospering. Unemployment virtually disappeared and another golden era for America took root. The stock market shot upward, along with paychecks.

Meanwhile, Japan, Germany and most of Europe were bogged down: Economic stagnation and unemployment shattered families and lifestyles. Workers who helped knock down the Berlin Wall fell victim to the globalization that followed.

Workers, politicians and academics couldn't understand why their economies, modeled after the great American postwar economy, could not compete. Why had these jobs vanished, while America was suddenly prosperous and thriving despite having lost its vast factories?

The answer was that what had worked in the past would not work in the 1990s. Producing steel and automobiles with a multitude of workers was a strategy to win the 1950s, not the 1990s.

What propelled America was a host of new industries, ranging from high-tech to services. From computers, software and biotechnology, to financial, health and educational services, America was creating jobs, opportunities and hope for its citizens. This country had risen to the challenge of globalization with a pro- active response creating an entrepreneurial society. Again, America offered leadership. It was again a beacon of hope and opportunity. And again the world emulated America.

Yet also once again, it doesn't take a detective to find that America is today rapidly losing (if it has not already lost) its monopoly on the entrepreneurial society.

Europe and parts of Asia recognize that an economy based on innovation and entrepreneurship is the recipe for success in the globalized economy. Aggressively supporting entrepreneurs is now an integral part of economic policy in Japan, Germany and Portugal, to name a few.

To borrow from Robert Frost, America is astride two diverging roads.

Down the path we took in the 1970s and '80s is a presumptive superiority, a belief that America is above it all with never-ending economic growth and jobs.

Down the other, less-traveled, path is awareness that we are a leader in something larger, a part of a global economy with the need to take the "Entrepreneur-Ship" to sea with the rising tide.

At the end of the last century, jobs and prosperity seemed unending, and some scholars wondered if the business cycle had come to an end. The new economy seemingly had ended the inevitability of downturns.

Things have not gone quite as smoothly in this century. While there are no doubt a number of contributing factors, such as escalating energy costs, America's loss of innocence has also contributed to a more problematic decade with its leadership in doubt.

The path less traveled, to me, offers the best hope and not just for America.