In many spheres of human endeavor, from science to business to education to economic policy, good decisions depend on good measurement.
Ben BernankeRead
Neighborhoods and communities are complex organisms that will be resilient only if they are healthy along a number of interrelated dimensions, much as a human body cannot be healthy without adequate air, water, rest, and food.
Interpretation
Healthy neighborhoods require interrelated aspects of well-being to thrive, similar to the human body.
Ben Bernanke's quote highlights the interconnectedness of various elements that contribute to the resilience of neighborhoods and communities. Just as a human body needs fundamental resources like air, water, rest, and food to maintain its health, communities also thrive when they are nurtured in multiple dimensions, emphasizing the importance of holistic approaches to community well-being.
In practice
In a community meeting discussing local health services, I presented this quote to emphasize the importance of interconnected support systems.
In many spheres of human endeavor, from science to business to education to economic policy, good decisions depend on good measurement.
Education - lifelong education for everyone - from toddlers to workers well advanced in their careers - is indeed an excellent investment for individuals and society as a whole.
Nobody likes to fail but failure is an essential part of life and of learning. If your uniform isn't dirty, you haven't been in the game.
Life is amazingly unpredictable; any 22-year-old who thinks they know where they will be in 10 years, much less in 30, is simply lacking imagination.
The benefit of appointing a hawkish central banker is the increased inflation-fighting credibility that such an appointment brings.
Economics is a highly sophisticated field of thought that is superb at explaining to policymakers precisely why the choices they made in the past were wrong. About the future, not so much.
Business, labor and civil society organizations have skills and resources that are vital in helping to build a more robust global community.
At a time when everything seems so out of control and the people you've elected are bogus and there's so much random violence and hatred, it fills you with such hope and admiration to even be part for a short time in a community where people have connected to strangers to try to put out a hand.
In any democratic, civilized - even non-democratic nations, if you are a nation, it means to say that in our case, if there's a hurricane in Louisiana, the people of Vermont are there for them. If there's a tornado in the Midwest, we are there for them. If there's flooding in the East Coast, the people in California are there for us.
Community means caring: caring for people. Dietrich Bonhoeffer says: "He who loves community destroys community; he who loves the brethren builds community." A community is not an abstract ideal.
Where there is no human connection, there is no compassion. Without compassion, then community, commitment, loving-kindness, human understanding, and peace all shrivel. Individuals become isolated, the isolated turn cruel, and the tragic hovers in the forms of domestic and civil violence. Art and literature are antidotes to that.
The tenets of my cultural teachings are rooted in our commitment to lift up every community member so that no one is left behind. Work and food were shared equally. Through our commitment to community, we care about children, even when they aren't ours, and we want our old folks, and yours, to live their last days in dignity and comfort.
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