We are at a strange
place in this our Summer of Way Too Much Heat and Humidity.
I’m not talking about
the impact the actions we, the Crown of Creation here on the Big Blue Marble,
are having on climate change and the environment because we’re still a couple
of years decades away from getting more than a grudging acknowledgment
from many that it’s anything other than ‘all politics.’
Besides, if we can’t ’own
the libs,’ we can always parboil them, right? As a meme I saw last week on
social media noted, “People moaning about the weather; at least it’s not
snowing. Imagine shoveling snow in this heat?!?”
No. What I’m talking
about is this time a month ago we were all readying three- and four-day
holidays (fingers crossed!) for Independence Day and in just about a month we’ll
be doing the back-to-school shuffle with thousands of children as we prepare to
mark or mourn the end of summer with Labor Day.
Things move so fast; we
spend more time looking forward to moments big or small than we do enjoying
them while we have them. Show of hands: At Memorial Day, who had plans for what “we’ll
be doing this summer.”? Keep ‘em up, I want to do a quick count. As I thought, just
about all of us.
And now as we round the
clubhouse turn into the first week of August, how many of those plans (personal,
professional, vegetable, or mineral) have come to fruition? Where are those
hands now? Is that the sound of crickets I’m hearing?
George Santayana once observed,
"Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it." I’m not sure what
he’d make of our headlong rush to embrace whatever is new and next without ever
wondering if it’s a good fit for our families, our neighborhoods, or our city.
Maybe it’s the high temperatures
or the times in which we live, but we’re very quick to judge others’ perceived
mistakes while always justifying our own. We want the world, and we want it
now, but we never take or make the time to thoughtfully consider all the efforts
being made by various agencies and departments across the city to make where we
live a better place for all of us to come home to.
Instead of applauding those
efforts and initiatives and offering to roll up a sleeve and lend a hand, we
point out missteps and shortcomings as if someone was giving prizes to whoever
finds the most (Present company very much included).
We can only aspire to get
better, by whatever unit of measurement you choose to define it, when we all
succeed. The critical skills I believe needed to succeed, communication,
cooperation, and collaboration are sometimes hard to find because we’re not
good at practicing them. Instead, I see a lot of ‘for me to look good, someone
else needs to look bad.’ How about you?
Those skills aren’t just
for use with big projects, like economic development-well, yes, they are but also
for smaller steps. Maybe not one of us can persuade Dunder-Mifflin to relocate to
the Business Park, but each of us can patronize the businesses we already have across
the city and maybe, start making the street where we live a better, nicer,
cleaner, and saner place than it was before the summer started.
It’s worth a try.
-bill kenny