From Resignation to New Conversations

The first phase of my journey into politics took me from being resigned about it, to realizing there are a lot of possibilities.

In January of 2011 I began Landmark Worldwide’s Wisdom Unlimited course, which looks at a person as a developing set of conversations. When we talked about complaining, I saw that, in my conversations about politics, I was a walking complaint. I was resigned about it. I was part of the environment that lets our dysfunctional political system persist. I did NOT want that, so I vowed to give up my resignation.

After the weekend, I began to research. How can I be a responsible citizen? I found the websites of my members of Congress, sites with information about bills, and money in politics, sites of political reform efforts. None gave me hope about politics working better nor a new way of being a better citizen.

My research showed there were problems in every major aspect of politics. Solutions had been proposed and pursued, many for decades. Yet politics was getting worse!

As part of my homework for the course, I tried to have new conversations. I asked people: What would it be like to have a political system we loved? People had amazingly few thoughts about this. And then: Would it be worthwhile to fix our political system? Yes, but few thought it was possible.

At the end of 6 months, I saw we were stuck thinking inside-the-box of what we already know. No one really knew why politics was so broken. So of course we couldn’t fix it.

I realized there are no real limits to politics. Our political system is entirely made up of rules that we invented or agreed to, plus our behaviors. There is a huge range of possibilities in how a democracy is run, what is communicated and to whom, what the rules are, and how behaviors are rewarded and punished. Possibilities are endless!

Living with American politics is like living downwind from a garbage dump and getting used to it. The stench is everywhere, and no one knows why it stinks. But at the end of my research, I knew there were endless possibilities for having truly fresh air.