Wednesday, December 23, 2015

Let's start listening...

Are our perceptions reality?
Through the years, I've thought of Americans as kind and generous people. I've thought that American values were about giving those in need a hand up, providing opportunity to grow, ingenuity, integrity honesty and dreaming big. Is that reality?
We may need a reality check. Perhaps a world performance review. We should have experts in many fields from other countries review our level of performance in their field of expertise. Let's ask government officials - politicians - in other countries to review our Congress and Executive Branch. Let's ask health care professionals in other countries to review our health care system.  Let's choose the major issues we face on any given topic and ask experts from other countries how we rate - Education - human rights - working conditions....
We are quite likely to be very surprised by the results. If we want to be "great" again, we need to be better listeners. We need perception and reality to be pretty close to the same. In our personal lives the people who love and care about us - and the people who don't - provide reality checks. They let us know how we are doing - like it or not.
Anyone who feels America is off track - for whatever reason - should be keenly interested in hearing from those who might have insight about why. I'd rather hear that from people who are succeeding where I might be failing. Anyone can spout about what's wrong. The important people are the ones with answers. Wouldn't you like to learn how people have actually DONE things right? Let's start listening.

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