Finding Voice

Finding our voice and finding a shared language with others helps lower the volume and reduce violent responses. Common definitions of words, which are agreed to, and a keenly developed ability to listen will change our world.

When we are ready to respond before others have finished speaking, when we try to finish the sentences of those we are speaking with, we exacerbate situations that listening soothes. People want to be heard.??Good leaders listen, bad leaders dictate. Knowing what people need and want creates opportunities, telling people what they will get disenfranchises.

Moving charity to dignity, moving donations to investments, and moving philanthropy to partnerships changes relationships, responses, and the quest for success. Ownership in the project is an incentive for building success.

When you hear that voice in your head crowding out the voice of the person speaking, silence it and listen. This is step one in living a Human Rights Life and following the Golden Rule. It is an essential skill for lifelong learning and building a Human Rights Community.

To make these skills a part of your life, to ingrain them in your DNA, practice them daily. Do you genuinely listen to your spouse, children, coworkers, neighbors, siblings, friends, or constituents? Can you repeat their stories, their ideas, or their concerns??Are you responding to what they said or what you wanted to hear?

A Human Rights City/County/State/Nation responds to what people are saying. It finds responses by listening and building partnerships in the community. A Human Rights Community recognizes equality and diversity while understanding we are not the same. There is always going to be someone taller, better looking, smarter, richer, a better athlete, funnier, but no one is more equal in the eyes of the law or in society. Everyone is born equal; no two people are the same. All women, men, and children have the same inalienable Human Rights, but to have them, we must claim them.

As we experience life, the words we know take on different meanings. This is as true for words in a poem as those in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, or those found in prayer. Talking keeps us where we are, listening expands our horizon. Lifelong learning expands our brain capacity in ways conventional education cannot.

Human Rights Communities are incubators for lifelong learning. These communities strengthen democracy and self-rule, developing flexible structures ensuring our governing institutions are of the people, by the people, and for the people. Foundations built on human rights are houses undivided, constructed with human dignity at their core, and made to stand the test of time.

Leaders at times like these arise from those most willing and able to grow with the times. Our villages, cities, nations, and world are ready for such leadership. Know your human rights, listen to your fellow citizens, and then courageously assume the responsibilities that await you.

Robert Kesten??December 22, 2021