...outrage is the business model of about one-third of the companies on the NASDAQ.
-- Sunny Bonnell AND Ashleigh Hansberger
What ever happened to leading by example?
My wife just finished another year teaching second-grade and it seems like the things we teach second-graders somehow don't apply any more...especially to our leaders / politicians. Maybe they don't think they really have much influence anyway. Or, maybe, we're all acting like this because they do? Who's copying who is sometimes hard to determine...especially when it's bad.
At the very least, it puts those trying to teach basic civility in a tough spot as they try build a base for children on how to relate to others...not to mention the aggregating negative social impacts that are being revealed in all kinds of ways each day.
No one said it was easy to set an example, but sinking down to the lowest common denominator doesn't even really make sense. We must have lost all faith in the goodness of humanity and, therefore, believe that the deepest realities are the baser instincts of our fears. Why else would we effectively sanction bullying in political and social spaces while we try to still pretend like it's a bad thing on the playground?
Whatever the context, it seems like two basic drivers are involved too much of the time — survival and greed.
Unfortunately, one seems to drive the other. And, it is too often those with too much who are effectively creating the dilemma of survival for the others. Fear is at the heart of both — one is real and the other is contrived. Sometimes this is intentional. But, I'm more concerned about the unfettered and disrespectful ways we are now normalizing and the cultivated blindness involved in doing so.
When will we realize we all live here together and that just because we have tried to insulate ourselves with some nice trees to block our view, it doesn't mean we're not all still living on the same dirt and breathing the same air? We have to take care of our shared resources and treat each other in helpful ways. It doesn't matter if it doesn't bother us directly...doesn't work anymore.
We must resist looking to the frameworks of the past to lead us into the future. Doing so is a way to pretend to control, to tighten our grip and reduce our cultural aerodynamic flexibility. Instead, perhaps we turn to ways of wisdom that cultivate intuition, patience, and ingenuity.
-- Cameron Trimble
I guess the case I’m making here is...finish here.
