The transfer of the Administration is soon taking place in the U.S. and the Canadian parliament has been shut down for a time.
It is interesting to note the amount of media time that is being devoted by the leaders to publish ‘reasons’ why things happened the way they did. What I am referring to here is ‘justification’ and not authentic discussion or de-briefing. Each ‘reason’ is tempered so as to include just enough ‘confession’ that we nod our heads in agreement that they are being honorable by ‘fessing up.’
It goes a bit deeper than simply inventing a history, after the fact, in order to be ‘right.’ About what? Well, for one thing, about someone else being to blame for our not-so-obvious lack of clear stewardship. For the successes, of course we accept the credit without any hesitation. We even put some in the bank to draw against, for the stuff that doesn’t work out…..kind of like to smooth over that other stuff.
So, here’s what an oldtimer notices about some of these things…..and this includes myself in the mix. It seems that for every new project, whether a job project, relationship, etc. we invariably include a hidden clause that covers our butt, maybe even hiding it from our own awareness! It isn’t that we are looking at all angles in order to avoid breakdowns….it’s that we already have an air-tight reason why our plans will go a different way….just in case they do! One common justification is that it’s part of ‘some greater plan and out of our hands.’
Now, this hidden part cannot be exposed for what it is each time or we’d actually have to take responsibility for being inauthentic.
So, where is all this going? I think it would matter if we laid our cards on the table more often and let the chips fall where they may.
Most of us are getting wise to the whole game…..actually we are getting tired of the whole game of subterfuge! We need to create some kind of ‘homeland security environment’ where it is okay to ‘not know’ what the results of today’s decisions will be. But we need to be responsible for them anyway.
No one ran away with our money. No one built the wrong cars. No one else is polluting the environment. We did it. We are doing it.
We need more ongoing cooperation between all of us, acting like real communities should, rather than waiting for crises to bring us together……like it seems we waited for in both countries.
Cooperation. Authenticity. Responsibility. I’m sure that the higher powers’ response to us leaving it to some kind of ‘plan’ would be “Right back at ya!” and noticing that would really matter.
Rich