Forbes claims that my home, Cleveland, is now the most miserable city in the country on the basis of a handful of financial and physical health criteria, a city with more bank locations than grocery stories and art galleries. It is at the bottom in health of all the 88 Ohio counties, a city plastered with billboards about how we have the best sick care hospitals in the country.
This, the city where, when I am home on any given night, as I did the other night, I can walk to one of the best rated restaurants in the country, listen to a couple of hours of magnificent poetry, and then finish the night at a live blues jam.
Earlier in the day, I taught a room packed with Cleveland emerging leaders how to convene the community in the four conversations that build community and keep them from the four that destroy and prevent community. You could hear a pin drop and the enthusiasm was palpable. Just before I spoke, one of the established leaders chided the group with the injunction that if they "just read the newspaper every day," they would, "become more interesting," an apparently core requirement for community leadership and amazing expression of disrespect for this passionate group of emerging leaders.
The pragmatic reality is this. If people here want a future different than the recent past, it will not come from re-telling headline stories that might as well be a daily reminder: "It sucks to be us." Every minute wasted in this media is a postponement of conversations about dreams, gifts, actions, and invitations. My dream is that more people put down newspapers and remotes, and instead discover the literally thousands of people trying to do something new here and ask them how you can help. Transformation is not hard unless you're engaged in only conversations that make transformation near impossible.
10-time author and designer with a focus on change in organizations and communities. HappinessChoice.com. Contact Jack at jack(at)happinesschoice(dot)com