Show Some F*cking Initiative!

One thing that bothers me is ideas without action. It's great to have a fantastic idea, but it doesn't mean a whole lot if you don't turn that idea into something. This concept, at least for me, generates into an ideal of personal responsibility. Here's what I mean. Take the state of health for example. People are bitching about health care, and most of the bitching isn't productive. It's bitching just so our elected officials can get their neatly groomed faces on camera. No one has really said anything about how little we take care of ourselves has impacted the cost anyway. Idea into action, while acknowledging that healthcare really is a flawed system, would move past this bitching and do whatever you can to make things better... maybe start some kind of movement for people to take better care of themselves, which would be an alternate route to driving down some of the costs. Now some people are better at educating people to take action. Some people prefer the action themselves. But bitching just to bitch gets on my nerves.

This is why an article on CNN.com damn near brought tears to my eyes. One of the things that people bitch about is education in general, and literacy in particular. We complain about how messed up education is, from the financing to testing systems, but we really don't do a whole lot... other than bitch. But is there anything that we could do to at least make some kind of improvements, even if it's in our own little sector? Absolutely. Just ask Luis Soriano.

Soriano is a teacher in Columbia. Being a part of the system himself, he is accutely aware of the problems with kids getting their educations. Some live so far away from a school, they either go irregularly, or they don't go at all. Even if they did manage to go to school, they still didn't have access to books to further help their reading. So literacy has become a growing problem. Is this a problem that could be taken care of by the local government if resources were plentiful? Yes. Is this a problem that a person who believes that some hands-on action born from a good idea could have an impact? Hell yeah.

So what did he do? He bought two donkeys, strapped some books to their backs, rides into town once a week, and acts as a library in poor areas.

That's right. The Biblioburro came to fruition.

Though it's not a solution that will solve the problem for that entire region, he is making a HUGE impact on these kids, who may then make an impact on others and so on. That is f*cking awesome.

THAT is how you do it. See a problem. Stop the bitching and think broadly about a solution. Act on it.

Congress should take some notes from this guy. As a matter of fact, a lot of people I know and don't know should take some notes. Bitching just to hear your own voice might make you feel better for a second, but it doesn't get you anywhere. When you bitch and bitch and bitch, you close yourself off to being open to other ideas that may help on a macro level. But when you shut up, take a few minutes to digest it and realize that there is a solution to everything, you may inspire yourself or others to conjure up something positive on the micro level, which could grow into something bigger.

And when you bitch (not you, but "you" in general), take a minute to ask yourself what the real problem is, and what you can personally do to fix it. Once you take some f*cking initiative, instead of waiting for someone else to do it for you, it'll go a long way. You'll realize that the next day when you have one less thing to bitch about.