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    I am launching this week’s column. 

    She announced last week that she was resigning from the US Senate, and as soon as she did so, she denied she was planning to launch a bid for the office of President of the United States. Whether she changes her mind or not, her statement and its inherent logic makes a lot of sense. Read through her words, and after that, I will write what I believe – that Greene is right about the US Presidential role, but unfortunately, her words resonate with a lot of other levels of politics.

    Greene said, “running for President requires traveling all over the country, begging for donations all day, everyday to raise hundreds of millions of dollars, arguing political talking points everyday to the point of exhaustion, destroying your health and having no personal life in order to attempt to get enough votes to become President all to go to work into a system that refuses to fix any of America’s problems. The fact that I’d have to go through all that but would be totally blocked from truly fixing anything is exactly why I would never do it.”

    Greene said she is “not motivated by power and titles,” while arguing that the “Political Industrial Complex has destroyed our country and will never allow someone like me or you to rise to power and actually solve the crises that plague all of us.”

    I have been involved in all levels of politics for more than 40 years. I have run for office, held office, and observed dozens of politicians from school board members to municipal councillors, MLAs, MPs, Premiers and Prime Ministers. All those years of observation, participating, and reporting have led me to believe that Greene is somewhat correct. Regardless of how hard you try, how much you strive, how much you feel moved to serve and establish new solutions to challenges, it’s very difficult to bring about significant change.

    Big changes, which are sometimes needed, are especially difficult to bring into reality. Once a person is in office, they soon find out that they are bound by tradition and vested interests. Traditional systems are entrenched, and most people and most organizations don’t like change. Sometimes it’s fear, sometimes laziness, and sometimes it’s simply stubbornly not wanting to do things differently.

    But changes are needed, as Greene says to “actually solve the crises that plague all of us.” We are all plagued with the need to change, all the while keeping the things that work in place so that chaos doesn’t destroy us. It’s a finely tuned skill to figure out what needs to be held dearly and what needs

to change.

    While Marjorie Taylor Greene is in a somewhat forced transition time in her life, she will, in all likelihood, find a few things to do. So will most of us, and that’s what keeps us going. We keep fine-tuning our daily routine so that we can get ahead. That is a truth that should never change, regardless of how old we are.

    For all of us, and especially those in elected office, it’s important to examine every decision and decide if there’s a better way. My response is a resounding yes, there’s always a better way to do things, to get through our day and to have an effect on our lives and the lives of those around us. Good enough is not good enough; excellence should always be the goal.

    Disclaimer: The views expressed in this column are the writer’s personal views and are not to be taken as being the view of the newspaper staff.