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A new solution

Letters

After years of listening to the banter of local politicians and residents alike, I thought this would be an opportune time to weigh in on the issue I am most concerned about — how we communicate and how this affects us not merely on a family level but on a community level and a global level.

You can see the dysfunction everywhere in our society. You can see the way we play the blame game right across the board. I suggest that what we say and do in public is no different than who we are in private.

If we are not careful in our interactions with each other we will hurt ourselves, our families and polarize our entire community.

Marital abuse, drug abuse, child abuse, physical abuse are the byproducts of not being able to communicate in the moment and not being able to respectfully listen to each other’s point of view. This is how wars start and how nations disintegrate. Isn’t it time to re-evaluate how you want others to hear you?

I wish to present a model that will require a different way of seeing things. This model involves putting a lot of effort into listening and our ability to share ideas. Most important it involves the need for council and community members to soften their stance and hearts with regard to how their personal needs are being met as opposed to what would be best for all of us, “what we want our community to be.”

Here’s the model in a nutshell. We all get to have our say and so do the politicians. Yet we must come up with a third solution — our solution. That’s the one plus one equals three solution.

Be respectful, listen, stop talking and end the polarization by refusing to take sides. Actually, there is no right or wrong just “ignorance of the facts.”

Don’t be like the wrong doer. Be of good cheer and remember your life is short and it is not what happens to you in life but what you do with what happens to you.

For the times they are a’changing!

Mark Ellis

Sook