Who Won?

Who Won?
It was quite an election this past week: lots of winners and losers, lots of after-the-fact analyses about why some won and some lost, and lots of polling about what the majority of the people who voted really want. Everybody seems to have an opinion, but nobody seems to be listening.

We elect people to lead us – how come they don’t?  We try to make sense out of all the noise – but the noisemakers are not making sense.  There are lots of assertions – but not a lot of truth. The only thing that everyone seems to agree on is that the partisan bickering has to stop, and nobody believes that it will.

The guy who lost gave a concession speech that made us want to give him another chance – but it was too little, too late.  The guy who won sounded reasonably conciliatory and magnanimous – but will ideology or commonsense prevail?

Politics, like life, is all about the give and take required to keep moving forward. We elect people to figure out solutions to the problems we face but unfortunately, after they get elected, our representatives tend to then make speeches rather than decisions.  And that’s no way to solve problems and move the country forward.

So, who won? If the people we elected, and those who lost, stop bickering and start working together, then we’ll all have won. But if they revert back to the same old partisan and ideological grandstanding, then everyone will have lost.  It should not be about party ideology as much as it should be about honesty, leadership, and working together to address and solve our real problems.  If they realize that – we win; if they don’t – we lose.

Now is the time for serious leadership, not ideological partisanship.  If our elected officials and the parties they’re affiliated with don’t get that then there will be no winners.  Let your elected officials know how you feel if you really want to be a winner in these elections!

One of my messages this week was about working together and winning as a team, and it seems appropriate in light of this week’s events:

“To find a fault is easy; to do better may be difficult.”  Plutarch

What kind of team player are you?  Do you get fully involved with others and support them, or do you stay by yourself and/or complain a lot?  We all know people who are one or the other, and probably have an opinion about which is better.  But seeing this in others isn’t the same as assessing the same in ourselves.  It pays to be an unselfish and committed team player when trying to get stuff done. That means you have to be focused on the task, supportive of what others are doing, being on the look-out for what needs to be done, and always volunteering to help others.  When called upon to do something, you should always give it your best effort, and when others fall short, don’t complain or criticize – look at that as an opportunity to contribute.  So don’t be so quick to find fault, because doing better yourself may be difficult.  Just do your best and give your best all the time – that’s all anyone can ask or expect.

Stay well!