RE: [RC] RE:WHY? (was LD and Placings) - David LeBlanc
Marshall said:
>I can't help but wonder why so many people enter an activity
knowing full well what the rules are and then try to change things to fit their
own agenda. I have seen far to many rule changes ruin far to many
organizations. I'm not against change per se but I do object to changes to fit
egos or personal agendas.
Why not? Why not work to make something better? I work on
Microsoft Office, and most people feel like it’s a pretty good piece of
software. Why wouldn’t we just keep selling the same one? It’s
because you can almost always make something better. I did a lot of work in
school where the EPA had a bunch of rules about how to test cars. We knew what
the rules were, but the changes we made were not only fair, but saved millions
of tons of pollution per year. We saw something good, and found a way to make
it better.
As to personal agendas, it’s like a lot of things.
Everyone has one, and we’re not all going to agree. That’s fine, we
don’t have to. Doesn’t mean it isn’t productive to talk about
it. It never hurts to understand the other person’s point of view, even
if you still don’t agree. There’s some folks here I don’t always
agree with, but I’ve often learned something from many of them.
While I haven’t been around for as long as a lot of the
folks here, I have been around 10 years. It’s a great sport, and I really
enjoy it. I think it’s a great organization, and there’s nothing
else out there I’m aware of that cares so much about the horses. I do
think it could be made better. If I didn’t care, I wouldn’t spend
my time thinking about it.
Our horse trainer has a saying about horses, and I think it
applies to a lot of things – they’re either getting better, or they’re
getting worse. Nothing ever stays the same. I’d prefer to see this
organization get better, and treating people fairly as long as there isn’t
any harm to the horses is just the right way to treat people. When you treat
people right, you tend to attract more of them. Telling them to like it or lump
it isn’t going to be productive in the long run.
We could get worse, we could get better, but one thing you can
bet on – nothing will stay the same, whether that’s people, groups,
horses, whatever.
