Same ol' same ol

Over the past few months my interest in policy and politics has grown. I’ve been reading and dialoging about local politics in particular and occasionally some national trends and politics. Much of my interest has been politics around education, and more recently, particularly given the nature of my 9-5 gig, victims’ rights and funding allotted to public safety, which includes funding victim/witness services. My interest has grown so much so that I have spent the last three days attending a variety of workshops at a conference addressing public policy, victims’ rights, and funding.
Many of the workshops were filled with hopefuls, young and old, new to the field and those who have retired, and then there were the jaded cynics. These were the ones who expressed doubt, muttered under their breaths, the naysayers. To their credits they were also the experienced. They saw the budget cuts that cut their job or their ability to fully advocate for their clients. They saw policies made with no backing to fulfill them. They have attended the funerals, or heard the stories of sexual assault or abuse that has now occurred in a fourth or fifth generation. They were the doubters of change.
And perhaps more than any of the statistics, the astronomical funding spent in places I think they shouldn’t be, it was and is the doubt of change that frightened me most. If we do not believe change is possible in ourselves, others, or systems, then I’m not sure we as a society will thrive. Without the belief of change we cannot actualize it. We cannot create what we don’t believe can be.
I need not list all of the things we now have that never existed before someone dared to perceive it and dared to believe that things could and would change by their creation or invention.
I was frightened by the doubters of change but not discouraged by them. Doubt is natural. I, quite frankly doubt that we can stay the same.
No one ever got phree without believing change was possible.