Head Full of Doubt

I know the summer season is winding down and you’ve got back to school on your mind so most of this today will just wash over you because there’s no life-altering aphorisms or earth-shaking revelations contained within.

If you read this for either of those, I’d urge you to get a library card and get lost in the stacks but let’s admit that too often we foolishly divide the world into “us” and “them.” Today I want to use “we” when I point out that we have elections this November which is after the kids go back to school, after Labor Day and Columbus Day and after Halloween.

I know it feels like a long time, so think of this as no more than a seed.

It’s okay to not worry too much yet about where those volunteering to be candidates for elected office stand on issues that are important to you, but it’s not okay for you to not have an opinion on what issues are important.

I realize you’re busy, welcome to the club, so is everybody else. In the last few elections here, voter turnout in Norwich varied. In the last municipal election in 2013, just 23 percent of voters cast a ballot. The year before that, turnout was much better at about 62 percent, but we had a president to pick.

With apologies to John Donne's Bell, no matter who you are or where you live, you must accept the consequences of every action and every inaction (having raised two children--okay having lived in the same house while my wife raised two children), that's the hardest part about becoming a grown up, accepting that responsibility.

We, wherever we live, need to be telling those whom we have selected and elected, what we expect of them. We define the goals and they refine the methods. When they succeed, we succeed; and when they fail, we all have to try again and try harder.

In Norwich, it's the usual suspects on those Mondays when City Council meetings are held and you’ll see the same faces at Board of Education meetings, for economic development workshops, or meetings on the Commission of the City Plan (and the list goes on forever).

Let's all stop using the past as a pretense to not map the future. When does a second chance become a last chance? And, more to the point, when does a 'last opportunity' become a lost opportunity?

"When nothing is owed or deserved or expected.

And your life doesn't change by the man that's elected.
If you're loved by someone, you're never rejected.
Decide what to be and go be it."

Simple as that: Decide what to be and go be it. 

-bill kenny