Consequences and compassion

Once again for the record, this article is my opinion.This means that whatever I write here is written from my own perspective and not the opinion of the Western Nebraska Observer.

If you would like to share your own opinions, you may submit a letter to the editor for publication. Please refer to the bottom right corner of this page, “Letter to the editor policy,” for more information.

I want to clarify that my opinion piece from last week entitled, “Shame on us,” was not about the ambulance service. It was in reference to a lesser known issue that has not received as much attention as of late. I was actually alluding to the issues of Keep Kimball Beautiful and the loss of their passionate and dedicated director.

And now for this weeks opinion piece:

Just mention the word ambulance in Kimball County and you are setting yourself up for a good half hour worth of passionate discussion.

As a WNO reporter, I sit in on every Kimball County Commissioner meeting, often representing both the media and the sole representative of the public. In the nine months I’ve been at this job, I’ve seen and heard things that the majority of this community does not. Twice a month I witness three people who have taken on a job that is thankless, difficult, eats up a majority of their time and attention and is filled with consequences ranging from a pat on the back for a job well done to being drug through the mud, with the most likely result is just plain ambivalence from the community. Fortunately for us, these people are passionate about Kimball County in a way that many do not understand.

I believe that as humans born in this time, we are all living our own personal heaven and hell. No one else knows what goes on in our hearts and minds. The person we project out into this world is often not a true representation of who we are on the inside. If you are a parent, you cannot tell me that you have not had to do things that you knew to be for the greater good and yet, at the same time, your heart and soul was tugging you in the opposite direction.

I’m not saying that the board went about the ambulance service change in the best possible way, but I do know that they were doing the best that they thought the county needed with the information they were given. Is it really their fault that the public didn’t attend the meetings? Or is it even mine or the paper’s fault that everyone didn’t read the articles written about the meetings? If the public does not care to stay informed and voice their opinions at the appropriate time, is it truly fair to throw the decision makers under the bus when we don’t like the choices made?

We are all only human, and as humans we have the ability to be compassionate to our fellow human beings. I ask of you, put yourself in the shoes of those who are on the board of commissioners for a minute, understanding that as an elected official you must look at all of the information, making a decision for the greater good of an entire county and not just for yourself.

I leave you with a quote from Anne McCaffrey, “Make no judgements where you have no compassion.”