I can make a bad habit of cruising through an article or opinion piece and letting things just float by. It can be an article I agree with or an opinion piece that makes me mad, but I take in the whole of the piece and sometimes forget to pay attention to details.

A piece I read by Nicholas Kristof caught me. One paragraph. I did read the rest of the column, but that one paragraph stopped me. Bothered me. Sobered me. And I honestly didn’t care about the rest of his column.

Working-class Americans have a right to feel betrayed. After almost 3,000 people died in the Sept. 11 attacks, we started two wars and allocated trillions of dollars to the response. But every three or four days we lose as many Americans to drugs, alcohol and suicide as died in the Sept. 11 attacks, yet the national response has been pathetically weak. The social fabric in many blue-collar communities has unraveled, and people are angry and frustrated.

It stopped me. Cold.

When the war in Iraq was heating up and I began to meet young men who had gone to Iraq and were coming home disabled, I was angered then. I was angered that we were going to easily blow 1 trillion dollars on war (which has only skyrocketed since then) and we were bringing home disabled people who would need intense care for the rest of their lives… and there was no budget for it. (That was reflected in the poor response of care we gave early on and it exposed how ill-equipped Veterans Affairs was in caring for their wounded.) We easily budget for killing people. We budget hardly anything for caring for people.

And this paragraph reminded me of those moments 20 years ago.

It reminded me of moments nearly 10 years ago as I listened to people in small towns talk about losing jobs and having to find ways to piecemeal together several part-time jobs and not having a clear way to “make it” anymore. And no one was listening to them.

We were coming in with “our solutions,” but we were NOT sitting with folks in those places and asking them, “What do you think?”

But that statistic Kristof threw out: Every three or four days we’re losing numbers that we lost on September 11… that crushed me.

Every week… two September 11s are happening.

The easy thing to do? Blame the government. Blame the schools. Blame… something.

The hardest thing to do? ACT.

The first action? Listen.

The addictions people are facing, rural or urban, are out of desperation. No one is listening.

And then… no one is bringing solutions. We’re too busy spending money for the next war. We’re too busy spinning up insults for those who don’t agree one hundred percent with us.

I’ve failed miserably in this area… more times than I could possibly count. I needed that paragraph from Kristof to stop me cold. (And that is whether I “agree” with Kristof or not as to the premise of his column. We need to do THAT more, as well!)

Am I listening… or am I allowing another to talk as I formulate a good comeback?

Am I caring in a way that doesn’t bring MY solution, but asks if some of these ideas I have may actually help.

We need to take a collective breath… sit… listen… and care. It won’t cost us a dime.