Being Useful

Yesterday afternoon while relaxing after work, I was flipping through channels. Usually I’ll flip through the first large networks to see what they’ve got on…ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX. I stopped at NBC because Oprah had a guest I was interested in. Someone I was interested in listening to and getting a little background on: Barack Obama. Hopefully, in my eyes now, the next US president. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama

He’s well spoken and a great writer. He’s handsome. He’s half black. He’s well educated and is optimistic about our future. Other than Denzel Washington or Oprah herself, I’m not sure how we could get a better person to lead this nation. I’m not registered to vote, so I know that some of you may point at me and say, “You have no right to say anything on this subject because you didn’t contribute to the entire election process”. And all I have to say to that is a few things. First of all, in the past, I didn’t care. My vote wouldn’t have made the difference between Bush and Gore or Clinton and Dole. I wanted Clinton (right about the time I started to realize how much a president affects this country), and he won. I wanted Gore, but in my opinion, the guy lost the election for himself.

And the only law that I felt strongly for? Was the indoor smoking ban we passed here in Washington roughly a year ago. And it passed by a large margin. Really, would me having taken a few hours of my time during election season have changed any of these things? No. It wouldn’t have. And the smoking ban was all I cared for. Now obviously this is a problem. Not only do I feel this way, but I am sure there are millions of other Americans that feel the same way. How can we call our government a “democracy” when over half of it’s constituents don’t even participate?

And this is the problem. Just like the corporate world, employees of large corporations (at least here in my company) have completely lost the sense of ownership, or pride over what their company, or their country in this instance, stands for. The gap between someone like myself and our CEO is so large that there’s no way I could relate, or even possibly have a normal conversation with her unless I somehow was able to schedule one. But even then…what would we talk about? That emotional disconnect, the apathy…that’s what is occurring in this country. And it’s been happening for years now. People just don’t care anymore. And in turn, it creates selfish, fearful creatures who won’t even wave to their neighbors in fear of offending them or getting shot. Does that sound like a place you want to live in?

I really hope that Obama makes the run for the presidency. He’s leading most democratic polls for who the presidential candidate should be, barely inking out Senator McCain. (Thanks CNN for your lovely graph). But after only watching 1 hour (42 minutes sans commercials) of him and his wife with Oprah, the emotional attachment was there again. Here’s a guy I think a lot of Americans who are tired of the cynicism can latch on to and hopefully swing their thoughts more towards hope and a brighter future.

The most interesting part of the interview (other than the laughs and awesome family anecdotes) was when Oprah asked Obama what he thought was the most important question for Americans to ask of themselves. And he responded with something like this: Are you being useful? Are you contributing to your community instead of just thinking of yourself? And he continued on saying how much better this country would be if everyone would step up and consider more than just “what’s best for me?”

And although I’m not a fan of new year’s resolutions, I wanted to try to implement this question in the coming year, and hopefully for the rest of my life. This was part of the reason for this blog. It was for personal growth and reflection, even though at times it may have just been my outlet to vent or share certain events in my life. It is giving me the ability to challenge my own thoughts/ways of life on paper to help me make a more concerted effort to evolve in to a person I love and respect (not that I don’t already, I’m just continually on the look out to better myself in any way).

So Senator Obama – If you do end up being a presidential candidate, you’ve finally driven me (after 6 years of having the ability to) to register and vote. And in the near future hopefully I won’t be forgetting your question.

Am I being useful?