Politics, in the last couple of decades I remember, has been like a game of catch. One party throws something out to the public and the other party runs either to catch it or to block it. Then that party throws something out and the game continues. It is an endless feedback loop that focuses on reacting in a way that makes the other side look bad, no matter what has been proposed or how worthwhile or enhancing it may be. Meanwhile, the good ideas rarely get a fair public hearing and not much gets better.
And we have bought into that same type of feedback loop. We play catch with the politicians. And we play a version of catch that has been almost all one way. They throw, we catch.
When was the last time any of us proposed a really new idea? When was the last time one of us criticized something a politician did or didn't do? Those questions speak for themselves. It's much easier to react than it is to envision or create. But, to paraphrase John Mayer, when you react to a circumstance or a personality instead of expressing what you see as a better possibility, what you get is what you got.
When we let a circumstance or personality or political football that someone else has thrown at us serve as an excuse for emotional venting or criticism, we are exchanging the opportunity to work towards something better for a reaction that may feel good for the moment but that also keeps us in a feedback loop with those very same personalities or policies we claim we don't like.
If we are all connected, then whatever one of us does has an effect on all of us. So even a momentary lapse for convenience or emotion has set a ripple across all that exists. Every moment which is not expressing the potential for something better is denying it, and with that denial a little bit of possibility dies. There is enough death in this world. We don’t need to create more just to satisfy our own personal whims or feelings.
If you are not enhancing life, then you are wasting it.
Happy Birthday, Barack Obama!