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Fall 2006 & Older To My Children About Getting Involved February 2006 An Open Letter to My Children and Their Friends:
We all as parents want to believe that we have provided our children with the very best we could possibly do. If there is ever a task and mission that we deserve for us to put our beliefs, efforts, time and money in, raising a family has to be the one. It has been for me by far, the hardest challenge that I have faced and the most rewarding by many accounts. But, as in any work in progress, I as a parent have to ask myself, “Now What?” You are all young adults, some with families and children of your own, some with careers and dreams in the works. Besides providing you with support and understanding, one main issue keeps surfacing over and over again in my mind. How do I make you understand now, the value of getting involved socially and politically?
The main issues that you are concerned with are the same I was facing at your age. Basic survival is always number one - paying bills, putting food on the table, making sure your children are provided with a safe and nurturing environment, the day to day, week to week, facing your responsibilities with as much courage as you can muster- but what about your future and your children’s future? Who is going to design and decide your landscape, the way you work, educate, prosper and progress? Should this task be ignored and left to the older generation to deal with, or does this warrant some degree of involvement?
Do not make the same mistakes I have made, which is to leave to somebody else the tasks of shaping up my future. I have stayed on the sidelines for far too long and I am now living in a political and physical environment that I provided very little to help build. We are today benefiting or paying the price for decisions that were made ten, twenty or even thirty years ago.
Would you leave up to somebody else the choices of where your children are going to be educated, what values you are going to attempt to teach them, or what kind of protection they are going to be under? Probably not. The question is, then, what will you do today so this will not happen?
One of the answers is, get involved. First and foremost, vote, not just because it is a civic duty, or a right that a lot of people fought for, but because it is the only way for you to at least think you had some part in the decision making. However small your contribution might look to you, it is a giant step in controlling what is coming up next. Get involved in school, town, county, and state projects. Read, talk, debate and understand. I know today’s hectic life does not allow a lot of free time to do all this, but unfortunately this is what some decision makers are hoping for, that you will be too busy facing today’s challenges to think about what they are setting up for your future. It is much easier to control and manipulate people if they are not informed of real issues.
It is not up to them, in their view, to provide you with explanations and detail. It is up to you to seek the truth, find answers, ask questions and decide where you go from there. So, please don’t let us decide alone what is good or bad for your tomorrow. Talk to us and help shape your future in a way that will work for you. You owe it to yourselves, you owe it to your children.
Thank you for listening. I will be waiting to hear from you. Michel Consejo Sheldon Basic Common Sense February 2006 Basic common sense would dictate that running an election race against established political incumbents is somewhat like “putting your head in the mouth of the lion.” The reasonable chances of succeeding are perhaps at best slim, some of the reasons being: (a) they have great name recognition, (b) they have knowledge of how the system works, (c) they may have more support and money coming from their followers, and (d) they have a track record of their beliefs and opinions.
The list of why a new person should not run goes on and on. Based on this we can find one of the explanations why some good people with good ideas and genuine desire to serve their communities hesitate and sometimes refuse to get involved in that quest. The fear of rejection is a very powerful deterrent to many endeavors, but then the question comes as, “Who, really, is a person thinking about joining the debate doing it for?” Obviously if it is for personal recognition and for just proving it could be done, the risks to rewards are not there. It is by far easier to stay on the sidelines and comment on others’ efforts to make a difference.
On the other hand, if it is to provide voters with a voice and a choice, the equation becomes different. Debate, by nature, provides a ground for change and innovation; talking and exchanging views with individuals that are at the other end of your positions always, at the least, forces you to rethink your own beliefs and why you have them. Providing an ear to the disgruntled, cynical, discouraged, mistrusting, shy, old and young is a way to grow a new set of values. At the end of the day we all have in common the desire to be heard. Simply listening, no matter if you agree or not, is showing that you respect and value each person you talk to. It is not about winning the argument or convincing the other as much as it is about acknowledging that there are many ways to look at the same situation. If one does not allow the possibility of being convinced to change one’s views, to tweak one’s thinking, to accommodate to changes, then that person does not deserve to be a public servant.
It should not in the best of worlds be, “What about me?”, it should be, “What about us?”, including the ones that don’t happen today to share your convictions. Once elected, any official should stop thinking exclusively in terms of who elected them, and truly think of what’s best for all of the people he or she represents. You should not forget where you are coming from, who you are working for, and why. Too many in public service end up forgetting those golden rules. The price to pay is you lose the trust and respect you once had and you just become another player in the game of politics.
Michel Consejo Sheldon Candidate for State Representative 2006, Sheldon & Swanton Great American HeroesFebruary 2006 By nature we humans all look for saviors, for people we somehow could relish, admire and emulate. We look for those people for guidance, both spiritual and physical, and wish that we could ourselves become one of them. I don’t believe that one, all of a sudden, wakes up in the morning and decides today, “I am going to become a hero.”
As much as religious, political or otherwise influential people would like to be the role models and deliver us from suffering, poverty, anxiety and all of the misery humans are afflicted with, they do not have the power to grant themselves the title of heroes.
For me the heroes come in all shapes and forms and from all levels of society. They are the families that adopt a kid that everybody else has given up on, the volunteers that donate their time and energy to help their community in need, the firefighters, soldiers, coaches, ministers, educators and grandparents, all those who saw an injustice, a need, a void, a reason to stand up and do their part to solve it.
We are never prepared or groomed to become a hero, it just happens out of necessity and devotion for human kind. There is one thing that all of them have in common. It is that when you meet them you know indeed they are Heroes.
So, to all of you everyday, common, normal people that somehow have elevated yourselves to that prestigious title, with all of the inconveniences and responsibilities that come with it, I salute you and thank you from the bottom of my heart. You are all examples that I would want to emulate and cherish. You make a difference in my life and everything you come in contact with. You are the real American Heroes. Michel Consejo Sheldon Michel’s Article Technology December 2005
Want it or not, our future is coming toward us at a speed that most of us can’t either comprehend or assimilate, and certainly not embrace. Being a baby boomer and a small business owner dealing with high tech equipment for the last twenty years, I have witnessed first hand the accelerated discoveries in the technology field. As never before in our history, the pace this is happening is mind boggling, and as much as you or I would like it to slow down, I can tell you already, it is not going to happen. All of us over 50 years old remember the first computers, taking up the space of a small bedroom, and performing tasks at a speed I could almost duplicate if I trained hard enough. Today I own a computer the size of a small book that performs tasks that I did not even know existed, and which probably could successfully run the budget books for a small country.
We as a generation and a state can no longer ignore the fact that we are not prepared and ready to move on to the next level. We will probably not live long enough to witness the full extent of the changes happening today, but as parents, leaders, business owners, we have to give the best chance we can, for our children and their children to compete on an even, level playing field in the years ahead. Chances are our great grandchildren will not even know what paper money is, and would frame our dollar bills as a souvenir from a past long gone.
It is good to fix problems as they occur; it is even better to anticipate what the problems will be. Fixing our pothole-ridden roads is a must and a necessity. Imagining that the roads future generations will travel will be electronic roads is preparing wisely. They will not need their cars as much as we do today. They will, however, need to have consistent, permanent, reliable and up-to-date means of communications. Their lives, personal or business matters, will revolve around their ability to connect better and faster with the rest of the world. If we want to keep our children in Vermont, we have to provide them with the tools they are going to need to be successful. The time to prepare for this was yesterday, and even though we may not wish for or accept it, that this new revolution is going to change our landscape and the way we live is all but a fact.
At this point we still have some control in how, where, and when those changes will occur. We can still decide where those ugly towers will be located and what they are going to look like. We can still negotiate the spectrum and timeframe of setting up the infrastructure needed. But we are surely running out of time. Let’s not wait for the fire sale to happen, which would lead us to uncontrolled and sprawling technological development.
To lead requires vision, not of what is in place today, but of what could and should be in place for the next generations. That vision may not be the one we wish to have, and may not even be in our personal best interest, but it has to be based on facts. It’s time for our leaders to make the difficult choices. We have to become more familiar with and stop being afraid of and puzzled by terms such as broadband, hyperlink, superhighway, ISP, DSL, etc. I know it may all sound foreign to some, but this is the language of generations X, Y, and Z.
Vermont could be a showcase of technological developments and an example of how we accommodate our future with our past and present. Let us not miss the chance to do it in a human manner.
And for all of you Boomers, it may be time to dig out that old 8-track, or that LP of Bob Dylan, telling us, “the times, they are a-changin’,” and if you can’t find it, you can always download it on your I-Pod from the internet along with the billions more pieces of information available there.
I wish you all a Merr-“E” Christmas and a Happ –“E” New Year.
Michel Consejo Sheldon |
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