I live in a wonderful country, Canada. We have democracy and wide open spaces. We have amazing wildlife and vibrant artists. We have large cities and quaint little towns, too. We have our poor and homeless, but even they do better than many in other countries. We have socialized health care and lots of jobs even in this climate. Perhaps it is too good, though, as too many of my fellow Canadians are apathetic.
We've had a recent storm-in-a-teacup in our Parliament this week (I won't bore you with the details) and all it really showed was how few Canadians understand our political system. Now, I didn't go to high school in Canada which is when you learn about this stuff and even I understood how our rather antiquated first-past-the-post parliamentary system worked. So many Canadians believe, however, that our system is more like the USA and that we actually elect our Prime Minister directly.
For many, however, this week was a bit of a wake up call, and when I've talked to some of my friends here in town about it, they became mentally engaged and suddenly started asking questions and formulating observations. Huh.
It reminded me about how the other week I and all my neighbors started getting automated parking tickets due to a snafu with the computerized GPS-and-a-database ticketing system we have here in Calgary. Essentially our block of parking "fell off" their map and so despite our parking permits started receiving tickets .. every day.
I phoned in about it and the woman I got on the phone told me I had to fax the ticket in along with my parking permit. I suggested the ticket should be enough as my permit is from them for my car (indexed by my license plate) and the ticket has my license plate on it. She insisted I had to fax it all in. I was ok with this at first until the tickets started coming in every day. This time when I phoned (and got the same person; I truly hope they have more than one person handling all parking ticket inquiries for the city!) I explained that I wasn't cool with the "fax it in" concept because I really didn't have time in my day to put together a fax (including fetching my permit from my car) every day and then tracking their follow up on it.
She insisted: I would have to fax it in.
I figured I wouldn't argue and instead asked to speak to her manager. She asked, shocked, "Why?" Evidently it didn't occur to her that social compliance (something Canadians are very susceptible to in general, in my experience) would fail her. I explained, calmly and with a smile, "Well, you aren't offering me a solution that is reasonable or acceptable. I'd like to speak with someone who might be able to do that. I assume that person would be your manager."
And then something wonderful happened.
She asked for more information from my ticket again and called over her manager. But she didn't hand me over to him (it was a man, I could hear him). So I made a little joke about how efficient their system was to be giving us all tickets on this block so regularly. We laughed and I observed that you could see the sign marking the zone as permit only and that maybe she could cross reference my license plate to double check. It turns out she could, and she informed me of this with a smile.
I now had two people helping me and they tracked it down within a few minutes to a problem with the GPS database. She said that they could track my tickets by my license plate number and deal with them all that way, and asked for a number I could be reached at.
Problem solved, and she sounded .. happy. Much happier than my last call or the start of this one. I could hear the engagement in her voice: she went from a "can't solve it, sorry" attitude that obviously was not very satisfying to her either to a "ok, let's figure this thing out!" attitude that got her laughing, found us success (and a bug in their system) and a useful conclusion for everyone on my block.
I see apathy all the time around me, and I believe it to be a curable disease. People "simply" need to touch life again, lay their hands upon a challenge, think in terms of solution ... and believe they actually can make succeed in that.
Engagement is inspiring, and not just for the one who finds themselves engaged. Conversely, willful ignorance, apathy and demanding consumerism are depressing and disempowering. At least .. in my limited experience on this planet that's what I've observed.
I know I've personally felt worst when I have nothing challenging me or when the challenges do not have success as a possibility. I feel horrible and frustrated when engaging with the disengaged. I know we can't be engaged 100% of the time ... but most days I'd settle for maybe 25%. ;)
Have you also noticed a link between engagement and satisfaction?
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14 comments:
More accurately, in Canada we have a Parliamentary Democracy with a Constitutional Monarchy. "First Past the Post" actually refers to the way our votes are counted (one round of elections, candidate with the most votes wins).
That's just to clarify a bit. Wikipedia seems to have good articles on all 3.
I agree that it's much better being engaged. I've never been so engaged in politics, and I've never enjoyed watching it and discussing it so much.
Yay! Democracy!
http://mises.org/Community/blogs/brainpolice/archive/2008/03/16/what-is-democracy-part-one-democracy-is-slavery.aspx
Socialised medicine, wonderful!
http://www.freemarketcure.com/
Having in the last two years gone from a job that was very satisfying to one that's not so much (for a variety of reasons that I'd rather not go into), I've found that satisfaction BREEDS engagement, rather than the other way around.
When I worked at a job where I felt like I was making a difference every day, it was a lot easier to not go on cruise control overall. Now, I really have to try to engage all the time.
I've discovered that at the very least engagement and satisfaction strongly correlate. This past semester I became very tired of school. I'm a bright student but I've been doing poorly because I'm very apathetic towards the coursework. Thankfully I'm taking positive steps to change that!
One spiritual master stated that "Struggle is the essence of life"
That is, without struggle without engagement without taking responsibility for our own life, our own actions, we won't progress in our lives journey of realizing our true selves.
Without struggle we are living dead... kind of the ideal consumers :-) or maybe I should say :-( as that's what are materialistic based society tried us to make...
It's so refreshing to see your attitude. You hit your head and keep going. People throw all kind of stuff at you and you keep going. Surely not without struggle and maybe at times complete frustration... but I see you bounce back again and again.
Yes, life is about taking challenges. And the satisfaction is in learning and growing, in meaningful relations on all levels. Knowing we are using our potential. And making the world a bit better place in our own unique way.
I hope more and more realize that easy life is actually no life at all...
So please keep going and going, and keep engaging more and more people.
I have been in similar situations again and again. Engage people and even the most grumpy one will become friendly if we can stay positive ourselves and indeed always keep believing in others.
"Now, I didn't go to high school in Canada which is when you learn about this stuff..."
Sadly that's often not the case. I got through high school without ever discussing government in Canada.
This isn't a "public education is rubbish" post. For the most part I'm happy with the education I received, but citizenship education was definitely lacking.
Must be a family thing. I too ask for the manager when I don't get a solution...and I do it with a smile...and not in anger. And I am ALWAYS asked "why?"..and I always say 'because I need a solution and you aren't able to give me one...perhaps the manager can" and then VIOLA...everyone starts jumping through hoops because I am just not going to give up so why should they?hehehehe....
I have friends who now call me up to deal with things for them as I am so successful at this....
hence the law degree? :)
Unfortunately that apathy is the side-effect of bureaucracy, which trains everyone that there is nothing they can do to fix anything - it's just how the 'system' works. Most medium to large and large companies have this problem all over the place, and it costs them their best and brightest employees - typically leaving them with the apathetic ones that are not that great at their job and happy to just get by.
We see it here in the U.S. quite a bit in gov't as well, only citizens are bit more likely to ask for the manager and be handed off to one, only to face the same problem there.
So it's a double-bonus for you as you got not just her to think but her manager too. At least you can say that have better management than most. ;-)
As a Brit it has been very interesting to watch the Canadian government recently as it is basically using the same electoral system as us. Electoral apathy is quite a problem in the UK at the moment, our current government has been in power for the past 10 years (almost as long as I can remember, I can just remember Major leaving) and many people feel that they have no control over the system.
I seriously wonder whether the economic crisis/recession will strengthen our democracy or weaken it further.
Anyway, just a comparison with British politics.
Thinking about democracy is thinking about the greeks.
and thinking about the greeks is thinking about slavery.
So, it is no surprise to see how some democracies work.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A471467
@Martín J. Ponce: that's like saying, "thinking about the calendar is thinking about the ancient Egyptians, and thinking about Egyptians is thinking about pyramids and other such monuments. no wonder so many countries that us the 365 day calendar build monuments."
(365 day calendar was invented in ancient Egypt. neat.)
anyways, you're "point" is absurd as it lacks any sort of logical hinge.
slavery is no more a feature of democracy than monuments are of the 365 day calendar. classist systems of oppression arise for independent reasons; democracy can be a tool against it (unlike most other political systems), but as a tool it must actually be used to that end. it's not an automatic cure.
@Aaron
I like what you wrote:
classist systems of oppression arise for independent reasons; democracy can be a tool against it (unlike most other political systems), but as a tool it must actually be used to that end. it's not an automatic cure.
My point is about
"The exclusion of a large proportion of the population, namely slaves, foreigners and women, from the citizenship".
btw. "foreigner" usually is refered to those that "are not like us".
Thanks,
Democracy is not an automatic cure.
First you describe Canada as a free and wonderful country, yadda, yadda. Then you get to the poverty (you ain't seen poverty, fella). Then you describe the conformity. The bureaucracy. Then these fascistic twits have at you in the commentary.
Ya. Canada is a REAL free country. NOT.
It has a feudalistic, authoritarian, unelected monarchy at the root of its political system, ferkrissakes. Get a clue, man. You just have MONEY, is all. It comes with rose-tinted glasses, you know? Even a police state has people in love in it. It doesn't stop being a police state for all that.
> you ain't seen poverty, fella
you don't know what i've seen.
> It has a feudalistic, authoritarian,
> unelected monarchy at the root of its
> political system
perfunctory and without any practical meaning.
> You just have MONEY, is all
hm, no Canada has a lot more than that. which is what makes the apathy of the people all the more frustrating.
speaking of what we've all seen, have you spent time in Canada?
> It comes with rose-tinted glasses,
> you know?
i think you missed the part where i decried the state of personal involvement, interest and responsibility in my country of origin.
you know, an interesting thing about power structures of brutality is that those held down at the bottom tend to become just as twisted as those holding them down from above.
and in between you tend to get malaise.
where ever you are coming from in that strata, try and see that it's not all black and white and that it doesn't all make logical, coherent sense when you hold the pieces up next to each other: a beautiful country full of privelege, causing the people to care less not more; the disempowered rising to create extremist lunatic governments that have as their primary characteristic the disempowering of others, which was the reason they got up to fight in the first place!
for those whose anger and self-righteousness prevent these ironies and tragedies from being visible for what they are, there is very little hope of them being a force for improvement in this world.
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