Essays from West of 98: Be Where Our Feet Are
In my last essay, I broached the idea that nationwide problems should have local solutions. Rather than fixate on the idea of a President swooping in like an action hero to save us, we should shape our own spheres of influence with our words and deeds and encourage others to do the same. To be clear, this is harder. This is more boring. This requires more effort. But life is not an action movie. It doesn’t have a dramatic rescue scene. If it did, important movements like the abolition of slavery would have ended a lot more quickly and with a lot less heartache and bloodshed.
Local solutions require better individual actions and better individual leaders. This is something weighing heavily on my mind. America is a country of strivers. We created a brand-new form of government by breaking free from the most powerful empire on Earth. We tamed frontiers. We pioneered technologies. We created new freedoms, the likes of which had never been seen on Earth. Those are good things in many ways. But implicit in the “striver” mentality is that whatever people are doing, they should be doing something more. What’s your job? You should look for a better one. What’s your salary? You should try to make more money. You should have a bigger house or a newer car. This is not inherently bad, because the idea of striving and achieving has been integral to many good things in America and in our personal lives. But it must be tempered, otherwise it creates a restlessness or an unhappiness with present circumstances.
This is a major problem in public service. If a person is elected to office and they do a good job, then people immediately start expecting them to run for higher office. Texas is hardly alone with this problem, but our political ranks are full of people blatantly using one office as a steppingstone for other, higher offices. It is part of why they orient their campaign around issues that have absolutely nothing to do with the office they are running for. They’re burnishing their credentials for the next job before they even secure their election or re-election to the job they have.
All of this is utterly maddening to me. It has also contributed to our ongoing political dysfunction. If you spend all your time running for re-election or planning your campaign for the next rung on the political ladder, there’s a decent chance that you are not fully committed to the office you currently hold.
There’s a line often used by coaches and motivational speakers—“be where your feet are.” The idea is to fully commit to the job you are currently tasked with. Your mental commitment to the task at hand creates better results. This is intuitive in sports, right? In baseball, a pitcher should focus on the batter that is waiting at home plate, not his next contract negotiation. A football offensive lineman should mentally commit to blocking the oncoming defenders or the quarterback will get smashed. A race car driver should focus on the upcoming turn or he’ll fly off the track, wreck a multimillion dollar machine, and endanger his life.
What if our elected officials adopted this approach? From mayors to school boards to county office to state legislatures and beyond, we are entrusted by the voters to do the job we currently have, not the next job that we might want. If we mentally focus on this job and only this job—and if we demand the same from more elected officials—our constituencies and our individual communities will be a lot better off.
James Decker is the Mayor of Stamford, Texas and the creator of the West of 98 website and podcast. Contact James and subscribe to these essays at westof98.substack.com and subscribe to West of 98 wherever podcasts are found.