Do you remember when you could tell by the way a person spoke and lived whether that person was a Republican or Democrat - that being one or the other meant that you stood for certain positive ideals (and yes, both have some positive things that they stand for)?
As a result of this clear demarcation, one knew what one was in for in terms of domestic and international policy when one voted in a representative of either party in the national election.
I remember those days well.
Now ….
Do you remember when a political candidate ran solely on the merits of their personal and party values and past performance, focusing on their proactive strategic and tactical intentions to make the country and the world a better place instead of merely focusing on trying to convince us why the other guy is “a loser who will destroy the country”?
That’s what I thought.
I don’t remember those days either.
Our modern day election process is no longer one of inspiring people to follow a vision, a vision representing personal and party values, backed up by past performance of the candidate and communicated via a strategic and tactical roadmap with measurable outcomes that resonates with the electorate.
It has transformed from being a process of making a proactive choice for the best person for the job to one of proactive avoidance, avoiding the person who, as we are led to believe, will cause us the most pain.
This is like saying you have two choices:
- death by cyanide (because arsenic poisoning can cause severe diarrhea)
- death by arsenic (because cyanide poisoning can cause severe headaches)
In this case, you have been told that death is unavoidable and so you examine the pain caused by each and choose the option that allows you to avoid that which you fear the most.
Such a process doesn’t move us purposefully towards success.
It’s a strategy for avoiding pain (and failure), which is the complete opposite of striving for success.
And in politics, as in business and even Life itself, you ultimately achieve what you focus on.
Unfortunately, it may or may not be the result you had hoped to achieve.
It’s no wonder we can’t move towards more positive results in the country and in the world-at-large.
It’s because we’re too busy trying to avoid failure and the person whom we have been told will bring us failure instead of embracing the candidate who has demonstrated that he or she has the best chance to lead us towards success.
Oh well … maybe we will do better in 2016.
Maybe.
In service and servanthood,
Harry
