Humbling experience?

Someone asked me this morning if losing my campaign for re-election to the School Board last night was a humbling experience. After giving it some thought, I surprised myself by answering "No." You see, I realized something. To say that losing an election is humbling is to say, by extension, that winning is an ego boost. Neither should be the case.

What should be (and for me is, indeed) humbling is the experience of running for office, results not withstanding. To ask people to give me their trust, to know that I am committing myself to years of asking their opinions, their desires, their wants and their needs, that is humbling.

Public service, community service should be just that: service. In its simplest, purest form, it is an oath by the candidates to put their own interests aside in favor of standing for the desires and defending the rights of those whom we hope to represent.

Representation is the most difficult form of service possible because the public's freedoms and demands must come first. They must come before the personal interests of the representative, because he or she is standing in the place of those who are being represented. Agendas must be set aside, considerations from our full time jobs ignored, demands from our political parties relegated to the back burner. When one is acting in an official capacity, one can be nothing but the vessel through which the public speaks and acts.

There are few tasks more difficult to perform honorably and conscientiously than representation of one's community.

Am I humbled by losing? No. Am I humbled by participating? Very much so. Was I humbled by serving for the last three years? More than you can imagine.

Anyone who is not humbled, who finds the exhiliration of exercising power too much to resist, who cannot understand that public officials have many, many employers and every one of them must be respected to the utmost... Well, people like might want to consider another line of work. They're probably not fit for public service.