NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTION (AGAIN)
by Greg Forest
January 13, 2011

I am rarely good about New Year’s Resolutions. At last count I quit smoking on New Years Day twelve times now. Those promises to myself to work harder and earn more seem to bump heads with my inherent lack of ambition and the present economic climate. I hope this year might be different. The hardest part of the process is deciding what my 2011 resolution will be. What is within the realm of the possible or likely? I’m reluctant to pull out my smoking cessation promise for its thirteenth time, so what is it that I can come up with that might be doable?

I guess I will start with what is really needed. World peace? Saving the planet? Getting healthier? All noble causes I suppose but not really likelihoods. I should come down from the clouds for a minute and try to do something small, something attainable – not some pie-eyed dream in the sky. But wait. Who says I can’t have big dreams or ambitions? Who says our nation and the world can’t be changed? Who is standing in my way on the journey down the road to human greatness? Who opposes me the most? Obama? Fox News? The Left/Right? All these powerful forces are seemingly aligned against me but are small potatoes compared to my real foe – me.

The labels placed on me by others are many – and often true, but I try to define myself using my own paint-by-number palette. Unfortunately, the vision of the personal masterpiece of my life falls very short of the final painting viewed both by others and in the mirror. Even with slack and its acquisition being encoded deep in my DNA, do I ask too much of myself? How does one become an ambitious slacker?

Gazing out over 2011, I see a quagmire of huge problems facing the world, our nation, my community and person. The economy sucks and the only thing holding it together is capital injections into market equity by the Fed and booming profits for the finance and defense industry. The rest of us are being hung out to dry. It is them against us. Right?

The “them,” in popular culture is anyone in opposition to my views. Regardless of what political, economic or even theological point of view I’m coming from, there is always a “them” working night and day to oppose me. My neighbor with completely opposite views regarding most issues, feels the same way. My opposite is victimized by people like me who stand in the way of their ideological agenda or aspirations. As an example, I proposed a scenario to a friend of mine: “What if the Right decided to half the defense budget, saving the country a half trillion dollars a year, what would you on the Left give up in kind?” How about a wage freeze for federal workers (not a done deal at the time of our conversation)? Nope. How about freezing Social Security benefits? Nope. To make a long story short, my friend was unwilling to give ground on any sacred cows. It appears the Right and Left are both equally inflexible. This in a nation supposedly ruled by compromise and consensus. What a quagmire.

Perhaps I might try stepping outside the box, ignore the ridiculous pablum the Left/Right media is feeding me and try to feel with my heart while still shooting from the hip. In a pragmatic sense, for my life to work in concert with others, compromise is required – on both our parts, mine and the rest of the world. As there is only one of me and 6 billion others, I expect my actions and opinions to be somewhat diluted if not ignored completely but, statistically, my opinions should carry at least the weight of one six-billionth of the global population. On a good day.

So what can I do in 2011 to sway people to my way of thinking? Absolutely nothing unless I am myself willing to be swayed. This means, heaven forbid, that I would actually have to take the time to hear what others have to say about things. And not just discard them, their ideas and proposals out of hand because I didn’t think of it or it isn’t on the list of what is politically expedient for my left wing buddies.

Ultimately, I am going to have to come to grips with the fact that a healthy democracy is a game of give and take. The all-or-nothing, take-no-prisoners attitude is what has brought us to the point where a major body of government, the U.S. Senate, is prevented from making anything happen. Democracy, for better or worse, is based on majority rule – not a super majority. If more than half of the country wants to go with a program, so be it. If the Senate can’t get an upfront super-majority, a bill dies and so does our government, one small inaction at a time.

As political realities settle in on the Congressional freshmen, I predict that 2011 will be much of the same as it has been in recent years– a lot of finger-pointing and name-calling and very little accomplished. Our government is a reflection of it’s citizenry and if we want to get things moving in Washington, we have to get them moving within ourselves first. Then reach out to our neighbors with an open mind, unless, of course, your credo prohibits open-mindedness.

I resolve to try to keep an open mind about things I have an opinion about. I will try to see the issue through the eyes of my opponent and underline even minor points of agreement as common ground to be built upon. I will endeavor not to foam at the mouth, rant or scream . Nor shall I place my fingers in my ears and say, “I can’t hear you,” nor skip through meadows of sorrow singing, “La di da…”

I will try to punctuate every dialog trying not to get into the others face, but into their heart. Reaching out to others should involve education, not indoctrination. In short I will try to keep my ears, mind and heart open to opposing ideas. I may not change my positions one iota, but at least I will be educated into the arguments that will be brought forth in opposition. Happy New Year and good luck with your resolutions.