Initiative

Peo­ple keep telling me to run for an elect­ed office, and my auto­mat­ic response is always leer­i­ness. The hier­ar­chi­cal nature of any bureau­cra­cy restricts ini­tia­tive and that’s my main strength. There’s also always too much talk and too lit­tle action. I’ve been to far too many meet­ings and read far too many weblogs where peo­ple feel per­fect­ly com­fort­able telling how things should be, but do no work them­selves to make those things come about. Action­less pol­i­cy ide­o­logues are real­ly just pub­lic mas­tur­ba­tors.

My moth­er used to always sing the patience song to me, but it nev­er stuck, and my nat­ur­al impa­tience becomes ini­tia­tive when I put it into action. I can’t count the num­ber of times this year that peo­ple have asked me if I’m run­ning for the board of TWDC. There was a time when I thought that work­ing for TWDC would be good for me and the neigh­bor­hood, but now I can bet­ter appre­ci­ate the strengths of unaf­fil­i­a­tion; much in the same way that I refuse to be affil­i­at­ed with a polit­i­cal par­ty. I don’t have to play favorites, focus my work on appeas­ing some­one’s ego, or lick any boots. I’m my own boss and I get much more accom­plished that way.

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