I don’t want to be a career politician—but I want to make things happen.

Politicians are born or created there isn’t any true in between. One either has a desire to go into politics or one is inspired to go into politics. Whether a family’s political legacy that engenders one into the family business—no matter how hard one tries to stay away. Or the young person who was inspired by a great political orator or a cause that seemed to have no true champions. Either person, once in the political sphere, has to decided is it the career path or is it just a moment in time—more often than not both will see it as a long term career path.

But what about the person who just gets in to politics for a moment; a moments desire—to see if in that brief moment they can help change something: their village, their city, their state, their country…maybe even their world. To impact serious change must one be in politics—can we not impact change without being a political insider.

What if our political system was somewhat reflective of our judicial system in that we served political office based on a lottery system—call it our civic duty. An individual would be called to serve, much like when a juror is summoned, at a given time and should that person be selected, by a group of their peers, they then step into that political role—I know, blasphemy! But what a way to level the playing field.

There is no automatic political dynasty. We would find people who serve out of civic duty not out of personal drive and desire—although this may still be present (we are human). Running for office would not be the political marketing spree that it is now. Regular people would be able to engage in hands-on politics and not feel as if they are marginalized because of a lack of wealth or political association.

Common day politics are about how much you have and whom you know—one’s actual ability comes into question rather late in the process.

I don’t want to be a career politician. But I do hope that I will one day have the opportunity to serve my community and country in a political capacity. And I imagine that once I get that opportunity I’ll want to stick around—I mean that is what I imagine…but who really knows. I believe there are a handful of those people who get into politics because it is the right time and all things seemed to align—they probably never desired for more than that moment. But once in that moment they realized that in order to impact systemic change they may have to be around for a little bit longer—and they too become career politicians.

I do know that my desire to help shape our world is deeper than anything I’ve ever imagined. I know I have the will, passion, and drive to make things happen. One day I hope I’ll be able to share that on a larger scale to the benefit of more people.

I don’t want to be a career politician—but I want to make things happen.

-d-