"The Power of "Why"

                “He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.”  Friedrich Nietzsche

When I was a kid, my most favorite word was, “Why?”  I wanted to know why the grass was green.  Why was the sky blue?  Why did I have a bed time curfew and my friends didn’t?  Why did I have everything on my plate?  Why are scrambled eggs gross?  Why is broccoli gross? The word “Why” is the single most important word we learn.  My real question is, “Why do we squelch the wisdom of “Why?”

                Mom’s favorite response to me whenever I asked a question was, “Because, honey.  That’s just the way it is.”  We can’t possibly have the answers to everything that crosses our inquisitive path but lately it seems as though the art of asking “Why” has been lost.  We say want our children to become critical thinkers but I am witness to complacency and apathy and I ask, “Why?” Truthfully, they very rarely ask “Why” and I so long for them to take that step.   Let me just say for the record that if I had asked “Why” with more regularity I would surely be in a different position than I am today.  Not that I’m whining but I do want to know “why” many of us are so complacent.  Have we forgotten the power of “why?”

The questions we raise become as important as we search for the answers.  Just when we think we have found reasons why this is so or that are so, we relegate to a new understanding and more questions begin to surface.  This is our personal journey or quest.  Here are my questions, raised only recently with the holidays approaching and the news being what it is...My “Whys?”

·         Why is politics so nasty?  Why has the number of people qualified to vote decreasing each political year?  Hmmm....are the two questions somewhat related to each other?  Hmmm...Why do we vote the same people into office year after year and have absolutely nothing to show for it?

·         Why aren’t we developing simpler ways to manage our health care needs?  My God, the amount of paperwork generated over a simple mammogram made my head spin this year. We could discuss my drug plan too but I need to take a crash course in algebra and trigonometry to be able to figure out deductibles and caps and well...EVERYTHING else!  Note to self:  Pay every bill with a debit card.  No one argues with a debit card. 

·         Why can’t I find two socks that match? 

·         Why can I eat pizza any time, any place? 

·         Why in this day and age is there racism of any kind? Someone please explain this to me because as I grew up in the 60’s and 70’s I watched so many be assassinated in the name of civil rights.

·         Why in this day and age is there hunger anywhere in the world?  Why have we disregarded eating the old-fashioned way?  By growing the things we eat and by doing what my mother did all of the time which was to bake and cook from scratch...

·         Why did I start to lose weight by not going on a “diet?”

·         Why am I spending a ton of money to cover my gray hair when clearly, I should be able to keep my hair color at least until I’m 80?  P.S.  My hair dresser tells me that I am “soooo not ready” to go gray and I’m inclined to believe her.  This is why I must tip her.  : -)

·         How come I can vacuum my house and see dust mites surface literally in 24 hours?

·         Why won’t my electric company make it easier to pay them? Everyone else has an automatic debit card/credit card payment option except my electric company.  They can’t wait for us to pay them.   However, when the power is out we’re expected to wait days and days for the power to come back on when there’s an outage.  They can wait...just like we do.

·         Why do we have a war waging on education?  Let’s be honest here.  By the time we reach 8^th grade we get tired of public education.   Let’s learn a trade then.  The rest of the world does this and they extend the school day to those who show academic prowess.    Education is not the enemy.  A lack of jobs and services is the enemy and public education can NOT solve every social blip on the national radar.

·         Why do we forget about gratitude?

·         Why do we prey on the weaknesses of others rather than make them see their strengths? 

As I get older, I have tons more questions, more so than when I was four years old.   I love the word “Why.”  I love it more as I age because I’m no longer afraid of the answers.  I want the challenge of finding those answers.  It feeds my soul and the more I ask “Why?” the more I feel vitalized.   This is why we have so much to be grateful for in our modern world.  Because so many asked “Why,” so many were willing to make sacrifices because they found and understood the answers.  

With a Conscience: "The growth of my politics"

"One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.” – Plato

I voted today.  I always vote.  Next to getting my driver’s license, it was the single most important opportunity given to me at the age of 18.  I learned however, that politics can very easily divide us.  I was 18. A group of very nice Republican pollsters showed up at our home for a local election, and told me I couldn't sign the petition they offered because I was decidedly “Democratic.” I heard my mother jokingly tell my father, “Eddie, we have a traitor in the family!”  I realized then, that belonging to a particular party was too limiting.  I didn't want to be pigeon-holed.  It has never been my style.  A political party was not going to define me or my decisions.  Voting would achieve that or so I believed.  But hey, it was the 70’s, and we were still relatively innocent and altruistic...well I was.  At the given moment, I had to pick a party so I did.  I didn't think for one second that it limited me.  I still don’t.  Voting shouldn't be a limiting activity.  That’s the beauty of a democracy.

My interest in politics came earlier than 18 however.  I was in 8th grade and was convinced by my friends to run for class president.  I ran.  Posters plastered around the school.  I developed a platform speech.  I spoke to my entire class.  Another classmate ran against me.  He was quieter, smarter and well, he had fewer posters and I could tell it was harder for him to speak to his classmates.  It was harder for him to make friends too as I found out.  I loved every minute.  Clearly, he didn’t.  But that didn’t make him any less able to be elected.  I spoke to everyone I could.  I did, yes, I did shake hands with as many kids as I could.  He did not. I won the election.  When the votes came in and saw this boy’s face, I realized the price to be paid for winning.  By the time we reached high school, this boy had committed suicide.  We were 18. We had the entire world at our feet. Our dreams, our goals, our adult lives were ahead of us. I was popular. He was smarter.  When someone loses, we never really know what they could bring to the table, do we? This is the reality of politics.  History in the making and the shaping of our destiny and personal well-being are determined with time.  This is all the more reason to vote.

Politics is a continual experiment in popularity. To become elected, a politician has to sell the public on their ideals, their goals, their beliefs.  If we can relate to what they are communicating to us, we vote them into office   History tells us that although we have fought for every single freedom we have, we pay a price for our decisions.  All the more reason vote intelligently.

Today, decades later, I don’t vote with popularity in mind.  I vote my conscience.  I learn as much as I can about the candidates and make a decision based on their decision-making, not on their rhetoric. I care about their mind and their ability to work for the common good.  It’s not a popularity contest for me.  Sometimes it’s a comedy of errors and I find that amusing but for the most part, we need “thinkers” in office like my classmate.  Candidates need to show common sense not dogma.  Candidates need to have acute listening skills and make decisions that will promote sanity not stupidity.  We not only need to embrace the winners, we need to embrace the losers too because they used their voice. They made us think and they challenged us at our core.

I voted today with the very best of intentions.  Let’s hope the winners act with the same idea in mind.  It’s not a popularity contest.  It’s history...ours.