As I look at my hometown the city of Chicago I look at it as a city on the brink and I know that the world as a whole is on the brink but I can only write about what I am seeing and hearing on an everyday basis politically, socially, and economically there are a lot of things that are going on right now that will shape our city's future for good or bad we need to figure out just what that future will be with elections coming up soon once again we will be tasked with choosing people who we believe have our best interests at heart we have the power to dictate what we want seen in our neighborhoods and our state as a whole once again it will be up to us and once again if we fail to come out and let our voice be known it will be get what they give which has been our mentality for a lot of years we feel as though we don't matter but we are the ones who make us not matter and while we get help we do most of the damage on our own and while we may agree on some major issues we can never agree how to get there and when this happens nothing usually gets done it's always you and me but never us and while their are some groups that are very active in doing things to help but they can't carry the load by themselves and I will be the first to admit that I am guilty of this myself and the reason for it is what I have just said it's hard to commit to something if the people who are organizing are not fully committed to the cause I don't believe in halfway doing anything that I do I believe in the bigger picture of doing for yourself and others when you can and I truly believe that if the majority of us thought this way we could get a lot accomplished but all major offices are up for grabs in the next year and a half and it will be up to us to put people in place who we believe have our best interests at heart the violence in our city lack of quality jobs and education are at the top of the list we are in a great position to change the direction that our city is going in I'm excited but also cautious because we can either move forward or fall backwards this is truly up to us and I hope that we are prepared to make the right choices