Individual decisions

individual decisions, they add up

into street level dilemmas

into the policemen on the corner

teachers in the classroom

judges in the courtroom

social workers on the case

nurses in the emergency room

individual decisions they affect us

they affect the children in the classrooms

parents in the school board meetings

clients in the courtrooms

the suspects in the squad cars

patients in the hospitals

the individual decisions

are more than an individual can envision

they can label one a criminal

a good citizen

mentally ill

very normal

unsalvageable

a force multiplier

a reasonable cause

or just another wasted effort

from the accumulation of individual decisions

comes all of societies policy

from the individual

comes the family

comes the group

comes the town

comes the city

comes the state

comes the country

becomes society

becomes a population

becomes the species

every one of us

from the individual and our decisions

becomes the world and its inhabitants 

Author's Note

Reviews

[Betty Hermelee]

Decisions, decisions, are an important part of one’ life…… we make decisions alone, with family….and then it extends to groups, villages, cities, states, countries, and each decision becomes more complex, as it involves more people….this an interesting thought and you have presented us with a complex one…..you also bring up labeling people which can be a negative, like a criminal, or positive like judges….
Best,
B.

[Davidgeo]

Labeling becomes more and more of a necessary evil with each step towards institutional complexity. More and more individuals tend to get lost in the process as things progress towards servicing more and more people as a whole. But the system would undoubtedly fail to run smoothly, or fail to run at all, without this necessary evil unfortunately. While it'd be nice if everything started with individual decisions this too is not always the case. We are all put in a situation that makes certain decisions easier than others, for some they are set up for success and others they are set up for failure and still others fall somewhere in between. The real world is shaped by street level bureaucracy before anything else, the culmination of lower level public servants is far more impactful than that of upper level politicians, federal law enforcement and the higher level courts. The large scale impact of your average school teachers grouped together is far greater than any policy maker or regional superintendent. The individual and the decisions we make are the true representation of reality but they are not made in a vacuum or in an objective state of mind.