Daily Mood Quote
Day 135 – September 15, 2011
“When one door of happiness closes, another opens, but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one that has been opened up for us”
~Helen Keller
In my life I have found that getting settled in one's way can be like quicksand. When opportunity presents itself you can't seize it, because your feet are stuck in the “same old way” of doing things. Habits can work for you, or against you. There is a saying, I'm paraphrasing again, “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
I usually avoid waxing political in this blog, but: last night on The CBS Evening News, Scott Pelley interviewed the CEO of Starbucks Coffee, Howard Schultz and I have got to tell you, I liked what he had to say about how our political system is “broken” (his words). Unfortunately for us, he's right and until we stop doing things in Washington the “same old way” (Congress), things are never going to get better. What I thought was interesting in the interview was companies/corporations are sitting on trillions of dollars and yet jobs are not being created, and we have the highest number of people living in poverty ever. Even higher than the great depression. Sad, just simply sad!!! Mr. Shultz went on to explain that savvy companies (the ones with the cash) no longer have enough faith in our political system to invest that money on R&D, expansion and job creation. Its not the American people, tax codes, or even the global economy, preventing corporate job creation and making them sit on their cash. Its our representatives failing to work together. A simple thing that is expected in every business, everywhere. Yet Congress and the Senate can't get past their focus on the next election cycle. That focus seems to be unilaterally “make them (pick a party) look bad.” Instead of, “do better, so we look good.” It's been that way since the Newt Gingrich era (or at least it seems, some say it was the start of extreme negative partisan politics).
My husband told me a story this morning about something called “the monkey trap.” I had never heard this before, so I looked it up at www.urbandictionary.com (it's not in Webster’s) it says, “A trap to capture various monkeys used around the world which consists of a staked container with a hole cut into it just wide enough for a monkey to stick it's empty hand into. The container is baited with something attractive to the monkey. Monkey reaches for bait and then will not release the bait and cannot pull it's hand out of the trap with bait in hand. It is then captured.” Sounds an awful lot like American politics to me. The people who are supposed to be representing us, appear to be so fixated on holding onto their campaign funding, that they cannot see the opportunity to positively transform the broken system that lies right before them. It feels like we are all caught in the same trap with them.
I guess what I'm trying to say here without bashing our politicians too much is that Mr. Schultz was right when he said, “The lifeblood of the reelections of every one of our Congressional leaders in Washington is about fundraising. And I want to cut that off until we see civility, until we have a long-term debt ceiling deal that we are proud of, and restored confidence in America. And I just feel very strongly that this is a time when we no longer should accept the status quo mediocrity that we're getting.”
To be perfectly blunt, most people in America and around the world would be summarily fired if they handled their job the way Congress is handling theirs. Something to think about. Thank you Mr. Schultz for being honest, about our political system, Washington and our leaders.
Like Michael Douglas said as President Andrew Shepherd in the movie The American President, “We've got serious problems, and we need serious people...” This is now the time for serious people and maybe their fifteen minutes are up...
Just a thought, Helen Keller was blind and deaf and yet she saw and heard “opportunity” more clearly than all of Washington.
Which “door of opportunity” will you open today?
Tune in tomorrow to read the daily mood quote
Thank you for reading
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