Thursday, October 27, 2011

Occupy X

Someone should make a game called Angry People. In this game, you have a bunch of people encamped outside some sort of buildings where financial stuff goes on. On each level, you have different cardboard signs and you have to fling them at the financial structure to try and knock it down. Except the signs are made of cardboard and the buildings are made of bricks.

Where am I going with this? Every day, I walk past the Occupy Boston encampment, and I stop and read all the different signs that they have on display. Many of them from people with valid issues, many of them with poignant and moving quotes. My favorite one says "We spilled blood on the ground and expected flowers to grow?". The movement itself is very touching and I truly sympathize with what they are trying to achieve. What is that? I don't really know, but I do sympathize. Which gets me to my next point.

You cannot be truly successful unless you can measure your success. Unless you know what you are aiming for, you cannot tell whether or not you have reached your goal. Or as my father used to say to me, if you cannot see the goal on the soccer field, you will not be able to score a goal. In order to be successful, you have to have a way of measuring whether or not you were successful.
In other words, unless you know what you are trying to achieve, you will not be able to achieve it. Which brings me...to my next point.

The Occupy Boston'ers have many many signs with messages about what they do not like. These are clearly stated and often make me really mad at "The Man". I very rarely see a sign that says what should be done about these problems. A manager of mine once said..."Don't come to me with problems, come to me with solutions. I will sympathize with your problems, but unless you tell me what you want me to do, I can't really do anything, and that's not useful to me." I feel that the OB-ers have not clearly stated what their demands are. Yes 1% of the country "controls" 99% of the wealth. How can we fix this? What concrete steps can our government, our lawmakers and our financial leaders take in order to fix this? What clear goals do they have and what timeline do they have in order for these goals to be met? And how are they monitoring the progress of these goals? (more on this when I find out)