Advice for President Obama on Balance

Max's advice for January 21, 2009

Dear President Obama,

Max grew up as the son of a man who knew 'ALL' the answers to the problems of the world. Max's father said so! Many times, his father let everyone know that anyone who didn't know that he had the answers was a turkey or a knucklehead.

The famous Ma Bell, the second most powerful force in the world (next to God of course), thought so much of Max's father's opinions, that she made him 'Supervisor of Troubles'. This is true!

The advice Max promised you, Mr. President.

Keep a balanced eye on the world!

Max realizes that when you start each day with the Daily Intelligence Report, it could make it very difficult to see that anything is actually going right in the world.

It is not that anyone is trying to scare the wits out of you that they put the reports together the way they do. It is just that in the short time allotted, the government services only have time to show you things that pose a risk to the country or its allies. Given how many things do place us in jeopardy, they barely have time to show you more than the most extreme problems.

The government is organized to protect the nation, thus you don't get much in the way of people looking for the things that are going right in the world.

Once you have had your dose of stories about people who do not care much for us and things that did not go as planned, you can start your rounds as scheduled by your staff.

Senators, Representatives and Cabinet Leaders will all be ready to show you what they are going to need from you. These needs will quickly become more bad news as the requests and demands will always out weigh the resources that you have to meet them.

Once your morning has been consumed by people needing your go-ahead, concurrence and the like, you will be ready to meet with someone for lunch. It is likely that even your predecessor was abundantly supplied with unsolvable problems throughout the day.

Though no one is trying to intentionally ruin your first full day in office, they are trying to get the attention of the one person who can make a difference on the one problem they see as most important. It is human nature at its best.

If you are to balance this with the way things are going that make a positive difference, you may want to make sure that you get a daily success briefing too. Though it could be provided by an agency, it might be better to enlist some person or persons (interns possibly) to look for and report on successes both in government programs and in the world/nation in general.

It might only last five to ten minutes in length. It would focus on perhaps the top three to five positive things that have happened through government programs and in general. It is a way that, for a few minutes each day, you could get to see what success looks like to the American people.

A good example of how good news works is when the nation sees on television a person rescued by the Coast Guard. Another is learning of a child's kitten being saved by a fireman from within the walls of a house. Still another is when a town is threatened by destruction in the path of a fire, and the wind turned it away.

These may not be the best examples, but you get the idea. If you find some creative people, they will put together a list from a wide range of things within and beyond government.

These types of things can remind you that good government is in knowing someone is there when the flood hits, that someone cares when our pets are the issue, that if thugs try to terrorize an American town that the government will remove the danger, and that sometimes when the government is not in control God/Nature may step in.

Operation Smile is a non-profit that has successes to report nearly every week of the year. In helping to cure cleft palates in children in a quarter of the world's nations, each child who can smile for the first time is a miracle of modern medicine and human compassion. Just seeing one of the faces of these children can lead one to smile.

Through successes in one part of the nation/world, there may be opportunities to see what it would take to increase the number of successes in other parts of the country/planet.

If nothing else, having a daily report on what is going right, even if it is only one thing, could give you a chance to smile. It is reported that smiling will help you live longer.

Max wishes you well in all your endeavors.

Max writes about greenways, rare diseases, timely topics, places to eat, travel and other issues of interest. He encourages you to add your comments.

Link one is Operation Smile success stories as told by patients.

Link two is Operation Smile program as an example of good news.

Link three is a list of ten reasons to smile.