Redeye October 19, 2007
Are you relevant?
By Jimmy Greenfield
It's not possible for me to mention President Bush in the first sentence of a column without mentioning how awful, destructive and dangerous he has been to the U.S.
No matter how often it's been said, and no matter how much the country has opened its eyes to his failings, it always feels good to say it one more time.
But as true as it may be that he's incompetent, I sure can't say that Bush is irrelevant.
Bush was questioned about his relevance on Wednesday during a news conference, and naturally he said he still matters despite record-low approval ratings, a Democratic Congress and just over 15 months remaining in his term.
And of course, he does still matter. Don't think so? Try telling that to the parents of the 24 U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq this month according to GlobalSecurity.org.
Now that I've gotten the Bush-bashing out of my system, I'm going to focus on the real point of this column, which is to ask a simple question:
How are you relevant?
The question is vague enough that I won't blame you for moving right along to the RedHot page so you can give your brain a rest. So take your time, think about it, and I'll be waiting at the next paragraph when you're done.
Welcome back. I hope that didn't take too long, but even if it did, I think it's a good mental exercise to ask the question and attempt to answer it.
Because if you don't know how you're relevant, then what the hell are you doing with your life?
I consider it part of my job to occasionally kick people in the butt and encourage them to rethink their lives and priorities.
It's a privilege to be able to reach thousands of people when I'm provided this space in RedEye, and I can assure you this column is one of the ways I feel like I matter.
To be fair, I'm at a stage in my life where figuring out how I can make a difference is pretty easy. I've got a wife and two young kids, and I'm perfectly happy to devote almost all my energies to them.
It's easy to see that I matter when a 15-month-old cries out my name as I walk out the door. True, he also cries out for his banana every morning, but the fact is bananas are quite delicious and, without a doubt, very relevant.
I need to point out that I do realize it's possible to be a difference-maker, but on the devil's side of things. So I come into this with the assumption that nobody, not even Bush and his cronies, thinks of himself as a bad guy.
One of the most memorable quotes of all time comes from Henry David Thoreau's "Walden," and it goes like this: "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation."
I'm far more likely to quote from "Anchorman" than I am from a 19th-Century book, but that one always stuck with me.
It scared me, and it has relevance to what I'm talking about today.
The alternative to not being relevant, to not having a say in your life and the world around you, is to be irrelevant, and that's a frightening concept. Accepting irrelevance should be unacceptable to anybody who wants his or her life to have meaning.
So go out and make yourself relevant. Just don't do it the way Bush does.
© Copyright 2007, RedEyeChicago.com
