dispatches from the new world of work

Re-imagine a Life Without the Right to Choose

Okay, it was Sunday and Ski-day, but did you catch the historical news? Lines of people, one for men and another for women, stood waiting patiently to cast one PRECIOUS vote in the first election that allowed people to express their minds and their hearts without losing them. And it was the first in five decades. FIVE DECADES is a lifetime.

Re-imagine a life without the power to vote, to have a say. Sounds terrible and out of control, eh? Out-of-control is what stresses us out to that state where stress makes us stupid and, ultimately, contributes to sickness and shortens longevity—i.e., stress makes us dead. But it sounds too much like life in the corporate fish bowl where lack of control, due to an inability to have a say, takes a serious cut into health, the ability to stay at the front of the pack and to stay in it for the long run.

Re-imagine a life in the wide world of work that embraces the ability to choose your destiny, to exert control, to VOTE. Now that's worth standing in line and playing-to-win! Proactive, provocative, really going for it! That's a life worth living and loving whether you're a solo flyer, a contributing team member fielding hockey pucks or corporate takeovers, or a global competitor.

What would you do to defend, or obtain, your right to vote? What would you choose or not choose in the workplace setting where you "spend" most of your life? What will you do today?

Pam Brill posted this on 01/30/05.

Comments

We should be ashamed of our voter turnout percentages when we see how many Iraqis voted under the threat of death, knowing that the ink stain on their fingers could mark them for assassination.

The Palestinians also had high turnout. Terrorism isn't democratic - it's the power of the few over the many. But these two elections give us a glimpse into the minds of the many, who just want a normal life.

Posted by Steve Yastrow at January 31, 2005 1:01 AM

Yes, the possibility to choose is the possibility of designing oneÂ´s own life. I always mistrust those ideologies that minimize the individual in expense of the collective. ItÂ´s you and you have thousands of possibilities in a life to do things.

Anyone who wants me for a project sacrifying my individuality makes me feel suspicious.

Political freedom and the right to choose is the possibility of getting rid of those who fail ruling a community. No other political idea is more powerful than that.

Posted by felix gerena at January 31, 2005 6:06 AM

Happy Monday from England, UK

My forefathers died for the right to vote so I feel grateful and very humble about that.

In our western culture we take so much for granted ...

Sure ...democracy has it warts and wrinkles ....... but at least I am allowed to express my view without fearing the consequences

Trevor
http://simplicityitk.blogspot.com/

Posted by Trevor at January 31, 2005 7:53 AM

That the ideals of "work freedom" and political freedom share many similarities is profound. At work, we know those studies that tell us people like to know that their opinions are being heard... that their opinions count... that they have a "say". That doesn't always happen in work or in politics. When it doesn't, people eventually (historically) rise up and make some change that eradicates the system.

These ideas on freedom--at work and in the greater human landscape--are all the more clear as I presently read through a biography on Benjamin Franklin. One of Ben's messages: "Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both."

Posted by Lee H. Igel at January 31, 2005 8:19 AM

Every time I drive my car, or leave home for work or the library, I say a prayer for freedom of women who cannot go into public without a male "keeper." Unimaginable.

Wonderful to see those voting lines.

Posted by AH at January 31, 2005 2:05 PM

A quote from the sacred book of the Mayans called the PopolVuh:

â€œWe did not put our ideas together. We put our purposes together. And we agreed. Then we decided.â€

IMHO-- that's TRUE Democracy !!

Posted by /pd at January 31, 2005 4:11 PM