Let's stay positive and focus on Seattle and the West Coast

I find myself a little befuddled these days about our country. Some days I find myself feeling a lot of anger. The decision by a significant minority of our electorate to hand the reins of government to an unfit man, for the sake of unspecified change, is difficult to understand. But I can’t control what happens in distant places, I can’t control how people feel.

What I can control is my own effort and time. And the real opportunity in front of me is to commit myself to making our local community and state an even better place to live. To be more tolerant, more welcoming, give more people a hand up, help create more economic activity, help more people who need help, etc. Seattle is a vibrant place, the state of Washington is an amazing place to live, the West Coast is a great region, but we are not perfect and we have more to do.

As a first tiny positive step, we’ll be attending the rally at Green Lake this weekend to stand up against fear and hate, and to show our support for the most vulnerable parts of the community. And we also want to demonstrate to local politicians that the community is committed to tolerance and civil rights, and that we will stand with local leaders to fight racism, sexism, xenophobia, etc.

I am confident that we can continue to make Seattle and the West a vibrant and attractive place to live, with great broad-based economies and great tolerance. We have much to do, but we have a great set of people here to do it with.