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TO SOLVE NOT ABSOLVE
Thursday Apr. 28, 2016
Told things are better, we criticize they aren’t great. Told things are bad, never a shortage of folks to blame – we enthusiastically shame them, might as well break out some hot tar and our stiffest brush.
Most people cringe at this thought – frightened of public humiliation, loss of reputation, penalties and costs that come with owning up. I’m not saying criminals shouldn’t be jailed, that society shouldn’t mete out justice for malfeasance – but there is something deeper amiss among us …
We pay massive collective costs – but who shoulders, accepts, admits and ‘owns’ responsibility?
We need better ways. Don’t rupture our public purse or shake our values to their core. Build people up, rather than tear them down, shredding them …
Papers, international op-eds, inexhaustible media talking heads (must be paid by the word), hype-fueled politicos bashing fellow politicos. Everybody is a critic.
We no longer live in a society where civility, clarity and truth – accountability, are ingredients in solutions.
We problem-solve, disaster-resolve, crisis-dissolve, catastrophe-absolve and sweep scandals under whatever bus we can throw someone under.
We (all of us) are better blamers, smoother shame-ers than explainers or fixers.
When is the last time you heard a boss, leader or pubic figure say: my fault, I’m responsible, and I’m putting it right?
Old cliché, ‘putting your money where your mouth is’ should be simply named ‘Trumping’, for that man campaigning to America’s ‘blamer in chief’.
Blame, such a shame.
Most of us do our share of blaming, finger pointing … we could dial back.
So refreshing it would be, to hear someone say, ‘I messed it up, and I’ll clean it up’.
Mark Kolke
written / published from Calgary, AB
morning walk: 2C/36F, misty/overcast … drizzling has become actual rain now, an intermittent breeze provide a proverbial face-slapping. Refreshing for me. Gusta doing nothing but enjoying her preferred conditions, cold and wet – and the wind in her face …
Reader feedback:
LIFE PRESERVER
Good Morning. How are you today? Missing your morning comments on "Life in General", SF, Estevan, SK
Mark, Thought you would like this: “Writing to Save the Day” by Henri Nouwen: “Writing can be a true spiritual discipline. Writing can help us to concentrate, to get in touch with the deeper stirrings of our hearts, to clarify our minds, to process confusing emotions, to reflect on our experiences, to give artistic expression to what we are living, and to store significant events in our memories. Writing can also be good for others who might read what we write. Quite often a difficult, painful, or frustrating day can be “redeemed” by writing about it. By writing we can claim what we have lived and thus integrate it more fully into our journeys. Then writing can become lifesaving for us and sometimes for others too.”, Susan#3, SA, Edmonton, AB
Over time I have notice the whistful quality of you "needing" someone with whom to share your life. Not wanting to be unkind, I am of the mind that, until you can be for yourself, you cannot be for another. Row on .... , AM, ?
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