We all play the role of politician

Once upon a time, in a land far away, Joe and Susan Brown and their two children lived in a peaceful suburb of a mediumsize Canadian city. They had lived there for many years, and they enjoyed great relationships with their neighbours

Even though Joe and Susan had very busy day jobs, they still found time to volunteer for a local children’s charity, and they frequently took their children with them on volunteer activity work days. The children enjoyed being with their parents on these days, and they felt happy that they were helping the lives of other children to be better.

The board members of this children’s charity come from diverse backgrounds and they work well as a team. They all contribute their ideas during the monthly meetings, and the ideas and suggestions that they provide are respected by the members of the group. The sole focus for the group is to make the lives of children better, and no conflicts distract them from their purpose and efforts.

Joe works as an electrician for a company in the city, and Susan teaches at the local junior high school. They both find their jobs very fulfilling. Joe’s boss pays generous overtime when his employees have to work after hours, he provides annual raises to his employees, and he is very flexible about his employees’ family needs and time

At Susan’s school, the staff enjoy a tremendous camaraderie and they are all totally focused on providing the best education to their students. The students, for their part, are all hard working, and are very respectful of their teachers. It is a very pleasant learning environment for both staff and students.

Of course, not everyone in this community is fortunate all the time, but when they do experience misfortune, resources are readily available. Everyone in the community has a family doctor. The very well-staffed local hospital ensures that the wait time for surgeries is no more than a couple of weeks. There are sufficient beds in the local nursing homes for the elderly and for others requiring care. Families down on their luck have access to funding that provides them with all their basic needs until they get back on their feet.

You might already have guessed by now that this is a fairy tale. What gave it away?

Of course, it shouldn’t be just be a fairy tale, but that it actually is, falls on us. We’re too quick to blame politicians for the woes of our little world, but how can we blame them when we ourselves are not blameless?

We’ve heard often enough that the first job of elected officials is to get re-elected. There is nothing cynical about this. When you get a job, you usually want to keep it. It’s all about seeking self-advantage.

In my travels, I’ve met a lot of good and selfless people. They believe in doing good things just for the sake of being kind and in contributing to their communities. In meetings or in group work these folks believe in allowing others to express their thoughts freely without fear of sanction or ridicule.

As for the rest of us, we need to take a good look in the mirror. Perhaps we also do good work in the community, but our secondary or ulterior motives are to pad our resumés. Perhaps we do these things because we want to be seen as upstanding citizens.

We spend a lot of our time seeking self-advantages. We get into disputes with others because their own efforts to seek self-advantages cross paths with ours. We’re jealous when others receive advantages that we’re not able to have, whether or not the advantages they received were warranted; consider raises, promotions, or favours.

This is the pool of people from whence our politicians come. If we want our politicians to be better, and if we want our communities to be better, then we need to be seeking self-advantage far less.