I Dare You to Look A Bit Deeper

I was in a 2-hour meeting this week. The topic of discussion was connecting people to issues and services within the community. We came to the conclusion that most of the woes of our community come from a lack of knowledge on any given subject. Whether it was access to the River Trail system or what is a bond issue for the local school.  People may want good things to happen but with busy lives and schedules some days we just don’t slow down enough to make finding out about the access to bring our family to the River Front Trail to bike or what exactly is a bond to pay for a new local school. Between school, jobs, kids, sports practices and homework most families just don’t have the time to read up on these issues and truly be educated. So much of our information is just what we pick up from well meaning, but totally wrong cubemates at work or from someone’s ranting about taxes on Facebook.  Most of us have so many responsibilities that craving out even an hour to read about a dry tax issue is inconceivable. Don’t get me wrong I believe most people really do want to do the right thing for our communities, but it takes time to read about it.  We always think I’ve got until November to learn about it before the next election. Then we have 20 minutes to swing by the election center and we have barely had time to think about how to fit voting into our daily schedule let alone learn about the ballot issues and who is running for elected offices.  How do we react either we skip voting or vote NO on everything since that way we are less likely to mess up what is not good, but at least we won’t be making it worse.

The same thing happens when we want to take our kids on a hike or bike ride. I’d love to do that, but by the time we figure out how to find the trailhead and research the supplies needed and find an open weekend to round up the family.  Suddenly time has flown by and the kids are 18 and 20 and have no desire to hit the trail with us.

What might be the solution? Here is a thought, after the kids go to bed do some research online about the next school bond issue and share that info pros and cons (notice I said pros and cons) with your significant other and then maybe 4-5 of your friends at work or your close friends at the next BBQ. If everyone in the community took on one issue gained some solid knowledge on it and then just shared with 5-10 people every year we could increase the entire communities’ knowledge exponentially.  Maybe it is one issue a month in a year. You and your significant other might have 20 pieces of information that would be worth sharing. It could be how to prevent child abuse or suicide or which trails are within walking distance of your home or how does the local government pay to repair those potholes in front of your house.  We have become so busy being busy that we are missing important stuff. We believe we are just too busy to educate ourselves and our circle. This type of commitment may only take 5 or 10 minutes of reading a week. The average person spends 2 hours on social media a day with no real results to impact our community or families.

I Dare You to commit this week and every week to spend as little as 5 minutes reading or researching or investigating new things that impact your community.  Additionally, schedule it on your calendar and check back with yourself weekly so this new goal doesn’t get away from you. Technology has made it super simple just ask Google and then ask again until you have the full story then share that story. My only caution I Dare you to be open-minded and willing to examine all possibilities before making and sharing your research. I Dare You to look a bit deeper.