Originally drafted May-2017; republished Sep-2021
This weekend I was sitting in a diner waiting on my breakfast and reviewing a copy of the local paper when an article by Lee H. Hamilton caught my eye, called “The budget process remains broken” (a copy is also available here). This article was another perfect example of a primary reason why I struggle to keep up to date with the news and often can’t stand to tune in for more than 5 or 10 minutes. In this article I agreed with everything that was said, but was still mad when I got to the end. This is very ironic because I even agreed with the very last sentence!
The problem with the end was that it was the end! The article ended too soon. It fails to propose a solution or give ideas about how the reader (assumed to be the average voter) can help.
I’ll try to give the author some credit and say that he did hint at a solution by saying “We keep electing people who tell us they’re distressed about conducting business in this fashion and then year after year fail to get us back on track.” but that’s the best I can do from this article. He spent so much time reviewing how things used to be and that they used to work better that he should have closed that loop by giving ideas about how we get back to that from here.
This concept of actually proposing concise and realistic ideas for a path forward, especially when considering that we’re all busy and time is limited, is my vision for how I approach things that I write. I finally decided to start writing, not because I think I’m any smarter or more experienced than others that are already involved in the various topics to come, but because I so rarely see anybody actually give ideas of what the average citizen can do about it. I realize that proposing ideas opens a person up as a target for criticism, but it is time we go through a paradigm shift and not accept anything less from anybody that has the power to enact or execute public policy.
In my case, if I am going to be so pretentious to write and expect that it is worth somebody’s time to read then I am obligated to deliver content that can really contribute to betterment for us all. If I fail at this then I am just another ranting voice lost among all the others that are already there, contributing to the problem of whining and blaming “the other side.”
For any topic that I could possibly cover chances are very good that my same opinion has already been written about by a much more eloquent and talented writer than myself, offering the reader a better experience and less distraction of grammatical errors.
So there you have it – this is why I chose to finally take the time to write. I am challenging myself and promising to you that if I take the time to write and you take the time to read it you aren’t able to get to the end and say “Okay, yeah that sucks but what do we do about that?”