Our Own Agenda

The other day I spotted a headline that claimed a woman exclaimed: “Finally, someone who thinks like me!” She was supporting Trump in the coming presidential election. And I wondered just how much of this was true, and if so, what this means for the rest of us.

Of course you may be a Trump supporter as you read this. I am not. There should not be any question about that! But this whole idea that someone is looking for another person who thinks like they do bothered me some. It rattled around my head for a couple of days before I finally began to grasp what bothers me about this idea.

I get it that we all seek people like ourselves from time to time. Such connections allow us freedom to explore ideas that are similar and see what we think the way we do, what holds water, and what plainly doesn’t. Most likely the latter are emotional elements that rarely are logical or fact based. Logic is different. That is what we think about.

But then niggling at the back of the mind is this stark question: “If I think clearly on some issues, why do I feel so unsettled overall? Feeling unsettled, nervous, testy, and insecure.”

I think it is the feeling side of these matters that get us unsure of our logical thinking side. If I’m so certain on specific issues why then am I still unsatisfied? What might be wrong about my positions?

If we think of this as agenda building first, it might help in weeding out what is logic and fact, from the feeling side that is not based on fact. For example, I am certain that people need educational programs and schools to grow into fully functioning adults that are capable of managing their own lives. And if successful there, they are most likely more capable of helping society conduct its business and important affairs.

From this position I become a supporter of strong and effective schools in our community. I also support strong schools in all other communities because if it is good for my community, it is also good for other communities. Together our communities meld together into a nation of strength and a people capable of accomplishing good things.

But then I am captured by the emotional pleas of those who are in trouble and who mock the schools. These are people who feel their schools are not as good as others and blame society for their ills because of discrimination or whatever. Gangs are a feature of their neighborhoods. Violence and crime accompany those areas as well. This leaves me frustrated and stumped as to what to do.

How do we solve such problems? Must we all fight to build strong schools in all areas even when our own need attention? Why don’t those other communities work harder in their own backyards to build what they want? Are they demanding too much from others? And if they get their demands met does this detract from the resources we have available to solve our own local problems?

And so it goes. Will we get ours or will they? One area pitted against another. Us versus them. And the emotional tide rises. Little by little this becomes the issue: “Why do others want to take what my community needs for their own?” Us versus them. And the skirmish for resources begins.

Then candidates for public office campaign for your votes. They look for issues that divide us and build a message of fear and loss. Then they promise solutions to those issues, or maybe they don’t; maybe instead they continue to build the fear because the solution to the problem is the last thing they want you to think about. Why? Because then their campaign rhetoric would melt away. Problem solved. No need to fear. Rather trust in the ‘system’ for answers and work within it like we always have.

You see the crux of the problem?

I think the answer is building our own agenda of issues that matter to us. Then we do something different – we envision the outcome we want to experience if the problem were solved. That’s it. Envision the community or world or nation the way we hope it to be if things were working properly and well.

Envision the outcome. Do we do this now? I don’t think so. I think we still focus on the problem and what’s wrong and unfair about it. And that heats up the emotions and makes political campaigns possible.

If we envision the outcome, we have an objective well in mind. That becomes a clear goal to shoot for. The logical solution from that point is the work backwards: we now were we want to end up, how do we get there from where we are living at the moment? Logical steps of work, resources and knowledge application helps build workable action plans.

I chose to begin with education because it is omnipresent in our lives. And nearly all of us understand that if our families and people in the community are to do well they must first understand problems and methods to manage both the problem and the solutions. Education is a major investment of a society in its people – first the youngest generation, then the next generation on up to the eldest of us all.

If we are truly committed to educating and developing our people to the fullest extent, then we will benefit from a populace that is knowledgeable and capable of amazing things. It is the seed of discovery. It is the rock solid base of self confidence and know how. It is the core to being free to explore the possible and then work to make it happen.

All of us should have education to the fullest extent we are interested in it and capable of accomplishing it. No more and no less. Some will soar to grand heights with college degrees and post graduate degrees. Some will gather skills that make them masters of trades and crafts we all benefit from. Others will be doctors and lawyers or research scientists capable of mastering solutions far from our understanding. And those will be happy people, too!

Each community needs to commit to this level of education. So does the nation. If we agree then we are more than half way to solving a lot of problems. Locating resources to do this is the next step but that will be much easier if we all mostly agree on this direction.

Setting agendas requires that we look at a lot of items of interest, items that represent problems in need of solutions. Not all problems are equal. Some are more important than others. Still others are more important to be fixed before others are, you know, an orderly process of logical thinking – fixing this problem makes it easier to fix other related issues.

And so it goes hopefully forward as you and I choose the agenda items that matter and focus on the doable and the important. And the logical

Not the emotional.

So that the fuel of weak thinkers is starved away from the politician. And then we can all get back to work. On the things that really matter.

October 5, 2016