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I have seen the Problem and it is me

2/3/2017

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Have you ever been around people who are negative? They are never satisfied. Some people define their coolness by downgrading whatever city, organization, or group they currently find themselves. It is their shtick to proudly pronounce all things bad about their cities. It is assumed that by downgrading the city you live in you pronounce yourself as above and beyond the plebian place you now find yourself in. Of course the problem with this is if anyone stops and thinks for a moment they would have to say you are describing yourself as failures if you are trapped in such a horrible place.
None of this is to say that offering a critique or assessment of the places you find yourself is wrong. It is needed. But if you find yourself describing yourself as greater than and not as part of the thing you are critiquing, you are not helpful. I live in Savannah, one of the most beautiful cities in the United States. Alongside that it has a very active art community with one of our better art schools: Savannah College of Art and Design. It is an international city with a large port, several ethnic festivals (Irish, Greek, Jewish, German, Scottish, Asian, Hispanic, and others) and an internationally lauded Music Festival. People travel the world over to experience the ambience and culture of Savannah. Yet some people talk as though Savannah is the most hick town in the United States. They dream of bigger metropolises such as New York as the preferred place to be, the Nirvana where all the businessmen are Trumps and the mayors are Gulianis: those bastions of progressive thinking. I like New York. It is a city with Broadway, Wall Street, Central Park, world-class museums and the United Nations but it is not a mecca or the only potential mecca. Boston, DC, and Chicago are proud cities too.
The naysayers become unintentionally humorous and sad when they sit on various important private and civic boards. ‘The leaders of this city do not know what they are doing’, they talk among themselves. ‘I agree. I wish I could serve on important boards so I could change things but wait I am on those boards. I am that which I hate.’
The truth is yes, there may be better fits for you but most of the time the problem is, you are not happy with yourselves. Therefore if you move you will be dissatisfied in a different way. The real task you have before you is to learn how to bloom wherever you may find yourself. This is the true genius of life.
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