A lot of people with whom I’ve spoken over the last several
weeks seem to be hanging by their thumbs until the inauguration, expecting the
new administration and Congress to wave some sort of magic wand and puff,
we’ll all be saved…only that’s not how things work.
Sure, you can bet that there will be a lot of noise and smoke
flying out of Washington over the next several months as people and
organizations press their claims for a piece of the action promised during the
election campaign, but is that likely to lead to any substantive change? Not
unless the institutions that have grown and solidified over the past century
suddenly have an epiphany and wither away. Besides, once the government decides
what it wants to do, if you’re waiting for its effects to work the way down to
our level, you may grow ancient in the process, and then what? For things to get
better, we’re the ones that have to be the initiators and then do the moving and
shaking as well.
Where to start?
That’s for you to decide, but one thing we all can do is
adopt a positive mental attitude and foist it on others. I made a decision more
than 15 years ago to stop reading, listening to, or watching the news and I’ve
been a far happier man ever since. By news I mean all the doom and gloom stuff
over which neither you nor I have the slightest control—trouble in the Middle
East or dirty politics for instance--or that which is based largely on
conjecture, not fact…nearly anything from the mouths of “informed sources” or
spokesmen for special interest groups.
If
you focus on the people and things you care about, I can flat out promise you’ll
do a lot better this year than if you spend your time and efforts worrying about
how the government is going solve the crises it created in the first
place.