13 Things You Can Do to Kill Your Community
by Doug Griffiths, MLA Battle River - Wainwright

Most of the ways we have discussed so far have been essentially about attitude. There is one attitude, however, that is absolutely essential in ensuring the death of your community. That attitude involves living in the past and constantly dwelling on past problems, mistakes, or failures. Of course, this also involves transmitting that attitude to other community organizations and members.

In my work on the Rural Development Initiative I have been in meetings with people of various backgrounds and experiences from over 70 communities around this province.

At every meeting I was at, working on this project, and at virtually every subsequent meeting where I discuss rural development and the thirteen ways to kill your community, I meet someone who purveys this attitude.

They usually speak up first and are the angriest, and they always try to suck the energy out of the room.

These people would rather dwell on the past than direct the future, and they do it in one of two ways, both equally as destructive. They either long for the glory days of old, seeing everything new as bad, or they dwell on the things that went wrong yesterday, as though it were tomorrow they were talking about. They want everything to return to what it was yesterday, or they complain passionately and convincingly about past wrongs or injustices, as if nothing can move forward until the past is rectified.

These people, it seems, are more comfortable dwelling on the past because the idea of living in the future scares them.

In committee meetings, organizational meetings, or just in the coffee shops and beer halls, these types of people are excellent at drawing down the energy of creative, forward thinkers. They are excellent at getting people with ideas to be frustrated, mad and defeatist before they begin a project, thereby ensuring its failure. They convince all that things will never be as good as they were and that there is no point in doing something; rather, everything needs to be undone. They are most adept at moving the conversation from that of solutions for the future to the problems, or glory, of yesterday.

I usually deal with them with frankness, though some would assert that I’m rather mean.

I don’t care what happened in the past. I mean, we are supposed to learn from the past, and I do, but we are not supposed to live in it. Things have been done incorrectly, and will be in the future by all people at sometime (my grandpa always used to say that the only time you don’t make a mistake is when you do nothing), but we need to talk about solutions, not talk incessantly about what wrong was done. Mistakes happen, but solutions don’t make themselves happen. You have to work on solutions for the future, and that only happens when you let go of mistakes and the glory of the past.

I don’t want to be mean or rude, but there isn’t enough time to dance around with niceties. The future of rural Alberta is at stake, not its past, and I/we need to deal with those who want to work for the future, not live in the past. So, let me assure you, if killing your community is your goal, that negative attitude is essential. Hold to it, live it, talk about it and pass it on.