Four Years of Changing Attitudes and Knowledge

Four Years of Changing Attitudes and Knowledge

Are you in any way a different person that you were four years ago? More knowledgeable, more assertive, better informed? Perhaps more appreciative of your immediate family and close friends? I sense that a lot of people have experienced significant personal changes in the past four years, but I won’t try to speak for others. Here is what I’ve noticed about myself:

1. Speaking Up & Acting Out: I participated in the Women’s March and the March for Science and in several local vigils. These are activities I had seldom engaged in since my college days. In addition, I began a blog to share my views on many issues.

2. Appreciating Family: I have been blessed with five grandchildren in the past eight years, with three arriving in the past four years. This expansion of our family has given me a new perspective on life and increased my sense of urgency about environmental issues. While it is frustrating that they do not live nearby, we have learned to appreciate phone calls and online communication as well as art and letters that arrive in old-fashioned mail.

3. Intelligent Conversations: While I have been in book groups for many years, they have recently taken on a new importance. I know there will be several times each month to get together with long-time friends to discuss serious issues and to enjoy one another’s company. Our Great Decisions discussions force us to deal with important issues of international relations which are commonly overlooked by television news and local papers.

4. Discovering History: There was a time I hated history. Now my perspective has changed dramatically as a result of reading the daily blog posts of Heather Cox Richardson, listening to her history talks, and reading books such as An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States, the Color of Law, and Caste. The lessons of history are important if we are to have a more positive future, with justice for all.

5. News Sources: I have been a daily newspaper reader since my teens and I still am. However, my new best source of news is National Public Radio (NPR) and our local affiliate KUOW. I am usually tuned in for at least a couple hours each day. I am now a paid online subscriber to 4 newspapers (The Seattle Times, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and The Guardian). I now know I need to pay close attention to where news items come from, to confirm that they are authentic and the product of professional journalists, rather than the chatter of an uninformed person or someone deliberately spreading falsehoods. I worry that we are losing responsible investigators and reporters and want to do my part to support those that remain.

6. Travel: I have traveled extensively around the world in the past 12 years, after my responsibilities for children and parents subsided. While the current pandemic has kept me home, my husband and I had already decided to primarily travel within the U.S. and to have visits with grandchildren a focus of our trips. This decision came about due to concern for the environment and because we have visited all our “high priority” destinations. Many experiences of past trips are still with me: A woman in Eastern Europe stopped me on the street and asked if I was from the U.S. She wanted me to know how worried she was about Trump as a presidential candidate. She wanted assurance I would not vote for him. The Nazi holocaust became especially real when I visited two concentration camps as well as the Prague ghetto. We had wonderful experiences visiting with Maori people in New Zealand and Hopi tribe members in Arizona and learned firsthand the challenges their people face. A government official in Cuba explained how he wasn’t overly optimistic that President Obama’s efforts to improve relations between our countries would be successful, since the U.S. government constantly changes leaders and policies. My two trips to Cuba also gave me an appreciation of their art and music, their healthcare system, and the harmony created in a society where there are not extreme differences in personal income. Finally, our visit to South Africa gave us a better understanding of apartheid and the process they have used to overcome its effects.

7. Government Regulation: I will admit to having given little thought to government regulations until the current administration began systematically rescinding or failing to enforce them. It may be years before we understand the full effect of these actions. Some of the issues that have particularly caught my attention include: environmental regulations, such as protection of endangered species, air and water pollution, and wilderness protections; financial regulations that protect consumers and prevent fraud and corruption; protections for government whistleblowers; consumer product and workplace safety regulations; and federal election fairness and disclosure regulations.

8. American Spirit: I have a much greater appreciation of positive leadership, which models respect and cooperation, such as the speeches given by President Obama. Our country is not held together by laws, police and courts, although those are important. What makes our country great is the good will and generosity of most of our people and their willingness to work hard for the benefit not just of their own families but the greater community as well.

9. Healthcare: When I turned 65 I was thrilled to be able to enroll in Medicare. For several years our family had expensive high deductible health insurance and we became painfully aware of the cost of each medical procedure. Now that I’m a few years older I appreciate quality and affordable healthcare even more. Aging brings on a variety of new health issues. In my case, none of them has been very serious, but as symptoms arise you don’t know at first what the problems might lead to. It has been such a comfort to know I have good health insurance and good access to medical services. It has made me realize how important it is for others to have this benefit as well, especially after conversations with friends from other countries who can’t believe the hardships many Americans deal with because of medical expenses.

10. Life Online: I’ve seen the best and worst of online platforms. I’ve loved my own involvement with Facebook and Zoom, but I see that substantial harm has also occurred through online strategies. I don’t understand the issues well enough to see what the solutions might be, but I support efforts to improve safety, stop disinformation, and control fraud.

I feel like our experiences in the past four years have changed us individually and as a country. I hope we will soon learn to overcome the strident conflicts, find a way to reform the institutions that have not served us well, and cooperate in the creation of a better country which ensures justice for all.

Carolyn Hayek