Be the Change You Want to See

SOOOOOoooooooooooooooo….I have had the opportunity to get real close to some controversy stewing and bubbling under the surface in our medical community. I’m not going to delve into it here. Instead I want to ask that everyone take a step back and center their thoughts, feelings and redefine their purpose.

It is always gut wrenching when we are face to face with poverty and the plight of the poor. Babies die from simple preventable maladies like dehydration. Mothers die from cancer and leave their children motherless. Fathers don’t live to give their little girls away or raise their sons to be men. It is sad. It is devastating. And some of us are deeply moved by these stories and the pained faces telling them. Some of us turn away. Some of us dig in and fight to overcome.

While these fighters are sincere and their fight noble, we can not let emotions undermine our good work and progress. The harsh reality is we are a poor nation. Resources are few to nonexistent. The government, red or blue, will always have way more on their plate than they can possibly handle. Throw in some ignorant, under educated, greedy, unscrupulous, egotistical maniacs and it just became 10x harder to get anything done. In this way, even people with good intentions will find themselves bogged down in the mire of corruption, stagnation and party politics. Barring ALL that and sometimes, you just have to consider that there isn’t the money to get the job done.

Sadly, it seems that this is where we turn on each other and destroy the only layer left between the poor and abject poverty and misery.

Please let’s not do this. Life can be incredibly long when filled with strife and difficulty. Just because we don’t get what we want right this second while we are buoyed by passion and conviction, doesn’t mean that the issue will go away or lose its importance any time soon. Much is accomplished by individuals rather than a government and perhaps that is the way to needs to be. Keep your heart strong and your determination stronger and you will get what you want. But if you burn bridges along the way and attack the very people who are supporting you, you just may end up causing more difficulty and strife for the very people you were hoping to help.

Sometimes you gotta kiss till you can kick and ain’t nothing wrong with knowing when to do that when you have a larger purpose than yourself.