by Linda Bessin | Mar 26, 2026 | Let's Talk About
Or
Sometimes you must clear all the crap out before you can close an old door and open a new one
After living here for over thirty years, I left Burbank. I made the decision to sell my home of decades, the home I thought I wouldn’t leave, and I left.
I have dug up roots I thought were permanent. It is a complete and final evolution of a path I have followed for the past ten years. A path that was devoted to community service and activism and fighting to make things better for as many people as possible. That path has now made an unexpected curve into a different direction.
Why did I make this dramatic change?
1 – When I bought my house in 1994, it was perfect for me. I travelled on business all the time and needed to be close to Burbank Airport. I was home just evenings and some of the weekends so a small house was easy to maintain and I didn’t need much space. Even when I retired in 2014, I was out and about more than home – I was involved in all kinds of events and projects, went hiking with my dogs, went on vacations, etc.
In 2025 I made the decision to be at home, to detach from 99% of my commitments and center myself on myself and staying safe and sane amid the madness of our nation and world. My dogs are elderly and I need to make sure they are happy and healthy. I quickly found that my house was … really small. There is no space to start a hobby, no room to expand and every area was about as full as it can be. Plus I lived on a busy residential street corner that is filled with commuter traffic that has gotten so much worse since the pandemic with 90% of the drivers blasting through the stop signs. I was also concerned about how many dogs were attacked by other dogs in the neighborhood who had crappy and irresponsible owners. I didn’t feel safe walking in the area.
I was burned out by all the time and energy and personal investment I made through my nonprofit board commitments since 2016 and realized that, as I am turning 65 in 2026, I needed to look at whatever time I have left and decide how to spend it while I am healthy and able. Having a house that was bigger and had the capacity to allow me to fulfill what I want to do for myself was a solution. I could explore new interests and relax and just breathe. Also for the first time in my life I would not be focused on satisfying the expectations of an employer, taking care of my elderly and ill parents, and having my time and energy completely committed to the needs of others. I could slow down and explore and think and read and center myself really and truly for the first time in these 65 years. To do all that I needed to be in a completely new environment.
On that note…
2 – What about Burbank? (I hear you ask). You were so devoted to making Burbank better.
Well, at the same time I realized I needed a new home, I also finally understood that my love affair with Burbank was an entirely dysfunctional relationship that I needed to break off. I felt love towards my city and wanted to show that love by bringing joy and helping others. In return I received hostility and anger. I was fought every step of the way by those who have the power to make Burbank better and who saw my efforts as a threat to their power.
Let me elaborate. When I approached most Burbank nonprofits to support them, my calls were not returned. When I sponsored events, it was made clear by how I and my guests were treated that we were not welcomed at their “galas”. This happened repeatedly.
The President of a local women’s group sought me out and invited me to join. We had several long conversations and I told her that when I termed out of several commitments I would join. When the time came, I applied to be a member and went to my first meeting, I said hello to her, and her response was that she ignored me. She pretended not only that we never met but that she had no idea who I am. As for the other members, their behavior was out of middle school and they made it clear that I was not part of their clique. I was pushed away from helping no matter how much I volunteered. I realized joining was a huge mistake.
My nonprofit, Elevate Burbank, had the goal of an annual festival that would be free for the community. Our Board had members who were lifetime Burbank residents. When we met with City staff to discuss our plans, these Board members/residents were shocked by the overt hostility shown towards them by staff as soon as the meeting began. They couldn’t understand why the City saw us as the enemy.
Here is the bottom line: I had the time, effort, skills and means to devote to help the City and all these organizations in many ways and on many levels. The hostility from those who could have had me work with them on their own goals, not mine, came through loud and clear. So I say to those people, you win. After fighting so hard for so many years to help, I give up.
Before you accuse me of paranoia, the effects of this toxic culture can be seen clearly in a widespread way in Burbank if you simply look. This is a level of dysfunction that has already damaged and discouraged so much potential over time and will continue unabated. People wonder why Burbank doesn’t have the variety of events, the celebrations, the number and diversity of nonprofits, the support and encouragement to prosper that other similar sized cities have. For example, Altadena has less than half the population than Burbank but, even with last year’s devastation, that city has a thriving cultural and nonprofit events scene that puts Burbank to shame. Why are there so few events other than the same ones you see every year, why are most big events totally controlled by the City, why do some organizations get such strong support for years and other and newer ones struggle. It is because of this culture. Why is it always the same people and organizations who are sponsors of nonprofit events? It’s because those of us who can and would donate and are not considered an insider are pushed away. There is a weird obsession with power and control that these people will keep until they are gone because it is their whole identity. One example is someone who used his connections with Burbank PD to have them harass me because I dared to disagree with him on something. These are the same people that publicly whine about how Burbank is changing and they want it to be like it was when they were kids 50 and 60 years ago. This anger at change produces this intense and toxic culture that blocks any efforts to improve Burbank. And this toxicity is so ingrained that I have no hope that this will change.
Why is it so ingrained? Let’s point out the cronyism and nepotism that has long been a part of the City and its staff as well as most of the City organizations. That itself creates a clique mentality that sees “outsiders” as a threat. But there is another side to this.
Years ago I worked in an office building with nine floors. My office was on the 9th floor, IBM was on the 8th floor and the other floors were CIGNA. One day three young CIGNA employees were in the back of an elevator and I was in the front standing next to a man who worked for IBM. The three in the back were bitterly complaining about a co-worker. Their conclusion that they loudly exclaimed was that “he was too good at his job”. They left the elevator and the man next to me immediately turned to me and, with a look of complete shock, said “TOO GOOD??? TOO GOOD??” I replied, well if you are too good you make me look bad. He shook his head and exited at his floor.
And that is Burbank. When you hire and support people based on connections and not merit, you end up with mediocrity rather than excellence. I have seen some outstanding people recently hired by the City and of course they don’t stay long as they see Burbank as a stepping stone to better opportunities, which they should. It is not a final stop for excellence.
There was a recent thread in the Burbank Reddit group about how so many were blindsided by massive increases in their BWP bills. The excuse they all received from BWP was that the BWP meter system wasn’t working and now it is so they are “catching up” with energy and water used. I received that explanation once. It makes no sense and BWP throws this on people without warning. It’s irresponsible and shows that this City really doesn’t care what residents think or what happens when they crush someone’s monthly budget simply because they can. They get away with it as there are no guardrails or accountability and mediocre planning is the norm.
For most of my years in Burbank, Public Works had a rule that residents were forbidden from putting out the blue and green cans for pick up unless they were completely full. Once I dared to put out a blue can that was 2/3 full. My can received a permanent large, colorful and obnoxious sticker on top warning me that putting out a blue container that was less than full would not be tolerated. Yet they made money off the contents and the trash truck would have stopped at my house anyway. This was just a power trip and the point was to let residents know that we answer to the City, not vice versa.
There is another consequence to all this that I must point out. When you have a culture that consists of mediocre people populating the halls of power, it is an invitation to be invaded by grifters. People see that there are few if any guardrails. And it’s not that people in power don’t see the grifts taking place, it’s that they want you to think that they don’t know. Because if they know what is happening then they could be held responsible. Look at the reaction of the BUSD Board when Char Tabet was finally publicly exposed as corrupt. They reacted with the same hostility and rage and arrogance and defiance toward the public that I have described being my experience. So many were shocked by their reaction but I wasn’t. Their arrogance and lack of leadership is Burbank’s culture.
As my profile rose in Burbank over the past 5-6 years, I was targeted by grifters. And while some had the goal of making money off me, others were grifting off my hard work to get the credit, the attention, the connections, the inside information and publicity that was generated. Some flat out plagiarized me without credit. And most if not all these people are in positions of prestige in the community. Once I stopped that hard work, all these people simply disappeared from my life and moved on to the next target they could find. It all became so tiring and discouraging. This part of the culture, the intense grifting, was in place before I moved to Burbank in 1994 and it will remain what Burbank is as the years go by. Maybe there is a point when it will all pivot into something better. But I don’t think I would still around by the time that happens.
And that ends my rant. Now that I have moved this crap out of the way, it is no longer my burden. The old door is closed and the new door is open The healthy thing to do is move on and so now I will.
Now I look towards the future with a full heart. Sometimes a wave of happiness and satisfaction suddenly strikes me and I pause what I am doing so I can feel it fully and appreciate it. My dogs no longer have the stress of living next to a busy street full of people with aggressive dogs walking by. We live at the end of a cul de sac so there is no traffic to bring noise and drama and concern. They sleep better and eat better and it is clear they are so much happier in their new peaceful life. We go for long walks around our quiet neighborhood or hang out in the backyard next to the pool and just relax.
The most interesting thing for me is how my mindset quickly transitioned to a new place and new future. I found myself looking at mementos from the past differently. I gave bags and bags of stuff to thrift stores before I moved. Now that I am here, I am seeing how my life is going to be and how so much of my past and memories of the past have no place in it. I had even more bags of stuff to give than before I moved. Things I looked at a few weeks ago and thought, I like this, I might need this, this has a memory – now I look at it and go nope, no need, no use, no meaning that matters, no reason to keep. It’s time to move on.
It’s like the weight of so much has been lifted from me. We hang on to things because we assign a meaning. Sometimes the meaning is not a healthy one for us. Now I see how easy it can be to choose a different meaning to all these things. And it can be uplifting and liberating and so healthy to make a new choice. We can redefine ourselves through these simple choices. I have lost weight due eating less and moving more as I organize the house into what I want it to be. We are next to a park so the only outside noise we hear sometimes are the laughs and happy yells of kids playing. We moved less than three miles away but now live in a completely different world.
I won’t be getting involved in local politics like before because local here in Studio City means something very different than it does in Burbank. Also, things function very well here. The park is maintained beautifully, the streets are clean and safe and for the first time ever I am walking distance to a small and lovely shopping area. My dogs have more sweet dog friends here than ever before and they are thrilled about that. I am slowly making friends here as well as I am not in a hurry. This is where I plan to be for good so I have time.
I bought a birdhouse many years ago and hung it in my backyard on my favorite myrtle tree, a tree that I planted myself. The birdhouse was never occupied by the birds in my yard but that was ok, I thought it was pretty and enjoyed seeing it.
When I moved into the new house, our new home, one of the first things I did was hang that birdhouse in our backyard which is filled with trees and flowers and birds and butterflies. Within a week the birdhouse was occupied and a nest was built and ready. This said to me simply and clearly and beautifully that my choice was the right choice and best choice and this is where we belong.
3/26/26
by Linda Bessin | Aug 20, 2025 | Let's Talk About
Photo by Javier Allegue Barros on Unsplash
My life has drastically changed every 10 years. The decision to make these changes was mine. Leaving the job I had for another job that was something different was an opportunity each time to redefine who I wanted to be and how I wanted to live my life. When I retired in my 50’s, the path I chose at that moment was to live my life based on two goals – to give back to my community and obtain a Master’s degree in English. Both of these were long time dreams of mine.
I have now been retired for 10 years and it’s time for the next path. The past 10 years were among the busiest of my life in the best way. I devoted myself to nonprofits that help the most vulnerable and had my grad school experience and received my degree. Some of the volunteer commitments often turned into full time jobs for me. I’ve been happy and productive in a way that has made an important and positive impact for others. But I am not young and my brain and body are speaking quite loudly to me and lecturing me to slow down and frankly they are not giving me a choice.
So now I have to decide what is the next path for me to walk for the foreseeable future. I feel blessed and fortunate but I also know that the decisions that I have made through my adulthood have allowed me to be in this position where I have this choice. I realize that the majority of people, especially with the rise of fascism in the US this year, have no choice. I don’t want to take this freedom for granted.
After some thinking, I decided that I would select my future by looking back at my past. If I made choices through the years that allowed me to be who I am today, what other choices were available that were selected by people who I once knew? How did those choices work out for them? Can I learn from them, can I see what other paths are available that I have never been aware of or that I refused to consider?
I began to search through my memory and find names of people that I knew 20, 30, 40 years ago. Many of them remain faces without names but there were some names I could remember. Sometimes I thought hard and figured out an identity and sometimes the person’s face and name just appeared to me out of the blue. Memory becomes such a funny thing as you get older; it feels like another person is randomly selecting what I’m able to grasp in regard to places, periods, people, etc.
I looked up people on the internet and on Facebook. I am sure some of them wondered why the hell I would suddenly appear on their “People You Might Know” listing. I think I have exhausted the list of those I remember: former friends, co-workers, and other people who were stepping stones in my life during the decades.
Here are the lessons I learned from my search through the past:
Denial is a deadly thing. There were too many who were in denial of how their choices affected their health and they died too young. Many didn’t even reach 60 years old. Each of these people was someone who I knew felt that they could live whatever way they wanted. I have no idea if they ever accepted that actions have consequences. One person was extremely obese their entire life and another was a lifelong smoker. Both died of sudden heart attacks. Another had diabetes and refused to do what was needed to keep their disease under control. They had a massive stroke as a result and died of the complications.
There were others with similar stories. Each death that I learned about saddened me. I don’t know if any of them tried to change away from their destructive habit, but I know that they refused to change their behavior during the time I knew them. It also drove home how we can’t take our health for granted and all these warnings that people want to tune out are about very real things. Death is real and I don’t know if these people understood that. I watched each of my parents die and maybe witnessing death makes a difference in understanding that.
Would they say it was worth it to live the way they wanted even if they died young? All I know is that it is possible to find a balance between doing things you enjoy that have risk and taking care of yourself. I know for myself that I have to consciously make the decision to achieve that balance and it doesn’t happen without a deliberate commitment. Plus, the decisions we make about our health affect not just us. These people had children and grandchildren and I have to think that they wanted these people to be with them and be part of their lives. I have to think that those that died wanted that as well.
I’ve tried to listen to my body and understand how we need to balance activity and rest, “healthy” food and “bad” food, and all the options available to us. Every one is born with different challenges and capacities for what we physically require to live a healthy life. And, even more important, these capacities change as we age. I plan to continue to exercise, eat real food (keeping processed food to a minimum), get enough sleep and so on. But I know that if my body is sending messages such as “slow down”, I need to listen carefully. We can be in denial about aging too.
Something else I noticed during my search is that many women who had careers alongside mine in the past eventually chose a different path. Some got married and devoted themselves to raising children. Some chose different careers that were not as intense and demanding. Some reinvented themselves after their children were grown. I am happy to see so many women feel free to explore the options. Of course, some of these options were only available if they had a spouse who could make a large enough income to support a family. I saw this choice of different paths with many women of all ages, races, backgrounds, etc.
This made me think about what we are witnessing right now, how the current party in power wants to subjugate women and roll back our economic and social freedoms. This is a clear and present danger. But my search showed me that my generation and those younger than us have had a freedom of choice as to how we live our lives that I think was unprecedented. They benefited in every possible way, their children benefited and I suspect all these generations will fight like hell to keep this freedom of choice for women. I don’t think this battle has begun yet and when it does start, their fury will scorch the earth.
I also discovered that almost all the women that I had known were married. I am fairly unique in being single my entire life. Did my look back make me question that choice? Nope, not one bit. My journey has been uniquely mine and started from a point where I needed to find myself in my own way and timeline. I think those who knew me when I was in my 20’s would be surprised to see who I am now. But this was always my goal, to find the best version of myself and bring that to life. I made the decision in my late 20’s to remain single and it has been one of the best decisions I have made. I hope that those I looked up feel that way about their decisions as well and, really, that is the greatest blessing I can wish for them.
The most important thing I have learned from this process is that I need to completely redefine my expectations of myself. I forgot how much I have evolved over the past 40+ years. I forgot who I was when I started my adult life and how much I have grown and learned and matured and achieved. I forgot the damage in myself that I have healed and the enormous obstacles I jumped over to do that healing. I forgot the child, the teenager, the young adult that I used to be and who was so desperate to achieve. But that need to achieve never ended, it was still in me and now I need to let that go.
To accomplish what I did during my working life gave me my greatest joy. I thrived on that joy but what I didn’t realize until now was that sense of achievement became my identity. I couldn’t see myself without that productivity, I only wanted to “exceed expectations”, to quote a common phrase from job performance reviews.
Life is stressful and much of that stress is beyond our control. I certainly never worked in a stress-free environment. Yet even though I retired, mentally I still functioned as if I had to get a good review. I created my own stress based on that because that’s the way things had always been. What my life had presented to me as my greatest challenge was living up to other’s expectations of me because those others could and would use those expectations as a weapon. So I had to do all I could to protect myself.
My new path is going to be one without any expectations. After countless job performance reviews judging me through my adulthood, I need to stop the mentality of proactively judging myself to protect myself against other’s expectations. I will no longer be completing a performance review of myself. It was this process of looking back that made me aware of this habit and it ends now.
I will still be involved in my community and spend time working with others to make Burbank a joyful place. I will send letters to the editor to say what I want and need to say. But I will also wake up every morning with no expectations of myself other than to walk my dogs and give them love and treats, be kind to my neighbors and ask them how they are, and see what new documentary is streaming about a musician from my childhood (cause there always seems to be a new one coming out).
My journey to visit the people I knew in the past ended up taking a path that went right back at my front door, which of course is exactly what needed to happen. The only path for me that is the right path right now is not one I adopt from someone else but the one that organically happens. Instead of feeling like I have to design and choose a path, for the first time, I will just be.
8/20/25
by Linda Bessin | Mar 10, 2025 | Let's Talk About
Photo by Sage Friedman
There was a family friend who was incredibly stubborn. He was elderly with many health problems and while he was a man of means and could afford any type of assistance, he refused any help. He demanded that the only person who would be allowed to care for him was his wife, who was also elderly.
One night he got out of bed without asking for assistance. He fell, hit his head on a table and developed a brain bleed. He died not long after this. I told my dad, who was elderly also, that I would not allow him to be stubborn like this. If he needed help, he was going to get it. My father just looked at me and laughed.
My father lived alone and was retired. He lived on frozen dinners and refused my request to sign him up for a fresh meal service. For years I told him over and over that he needed assistance and he refused, being just as stubborn as the family friend. My father was also a man of means and could afford assistance but still refused. Then, early one morning, while I was getting ready for work, my phone rang. It was my father. He had fallen during the night and was unable to move. While lying on the floor he was able to reach over to a table, pull the phone off the table and call me.
I called out from work, drove over to his house, made sure he was stable and immediately called the paramedics. While I followed the ambulance to the emergency room, I was on the phone with a home health agency that I was familiar with and arranged for a caregiver to begin taking care of my father that evening and for permanent 24-hour attendants.
As my father lay on a gurney in the hallway of the ER, I told him, with a pleasant and kind demeanor, that he had a choice. He could go to an assisted living facility or he could have 24-hour home care. I asked what he preferred, and he said the home care.
I think about these memories as I think about the tragic deaths of Gene Hackman and his wife Betsy Arakawa. Something struck me as more information was obtained and shared. They had both been dead for quite some time before their bodies were discovered by a security guard who saw them through a window. I thought, was there no housekeeper to help Betsy maintain the house? No one to help cook their meals or clean or do some shopping or handle any of the burden of caring for an elderly man with dementia? Alzheimer’s doesn’t just affect the brain; it causes deterioration of the entire body. Was Betsy handling his complex physical and healthcare needs plus caring for three dogs, one of which just had surgery?
Betsy died of hantavirus which comes from exposure to rat droppings. Did she try to clean them by herself? She died around February 11th, he likely died on February 17th and it wasn’t until February 26th that a pest control worker came on a regularly scheduled visit and because he was unable to reach them, a security guard checked on them.
When she became ill, why didn’t she seek treatment?
I read these comments about Betsy in the media: “While speaking to the New York Times, Tom Allin, who had been friends with Hackman for around 20 years, insisted The French Connection star “seemed happy” to have his wife “run things” and take care of him.
“She was very protective of him,” Allin told the outlet, adding that Hackman had said he probably would have died “long ago” without the care of his beloved wife, who looked after him and made sure he had a healthy diet.”
Betsy was 65 years old and had lived with Gene since she was in her 20’s. Taking care of him was her life, according to friends and family. Was she unable to accept that things had changed and she couldn’t do that all by herself? Would sharing the burden meant that she was sacrificing part or all of her identity?
Here is a comment by a physician to CNN: “It’s unclear whether Arakawa was his primary caregiver or if Hackman had other caregivers. If Arakawa was his principal caregiver, “she would be responsible for giving Mr. Hackman his medications, for cleaning him, for helping him to the bathroom and for feeding him,” Reiner said. With Arakawa’s sudden death, “one can see how, sadly, that could lead to his death,” he said.”
We make choices. We believe that our choices are correct but sometimes they are made out of pride and fragility and stubbornness and result in tragedy.
I thought of a documentary I saw years ago about a woman who drove the wrong way on the Jersey Turnpike and caused 8 deaths including her own. The film asked why did this tragedy happen?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Trck8tVtYyo
The filmmaker knows that there are no definitive answers, just like we won’t get final answers about what happened to Hackman and Arakawa. However, the portrait of Diane Schuler, the wrong way driver, shows a woman obsessed with being perfect in every way. She was the one whose kids were immaculate, who was perfect at work, who had the best dish at the pot luck every time and so on. The stress of pushing herself to maintain this standard caused her to self-medicate. When she had a tooth abscess that needed immediate attention, she decided she didn’t have the time to go to the dentist. Something in her life would then have been less than perfect and that was unacceptable. So, because of the dental pain, she took the self-medication to an unmonitored and dangerous level. And as she was driving the wrong way at 70 miles per hour with a minivan full of kids, one of the kids called her parent and screamed, “there’s something wrong with Aunt Diane”.
I wonder if Betsy decided that taking care of everything to do with her husband and home was her identity as well. It appears that Gene’s children and other family members hadn’t contacted them in months and certainly weren’t checking on them. Family dynamics are a complicated, intricate and unique thing for every family. To completely check out of the life of a fragile and vulnerable 95-year-old with Alzheimer’s means his children’s ties were minimal at best. I won’t judge anyone as to how they interact with family as none of us know what happens in a family. But it is clear that things had evolved into Betsy being the sole caregiver, sole caretaker and sole contact. And that is never going to result in a good ending.
The bigger question that I have arrived at is – is this a choice that some women are often forced to make, to be perfect and “have it all” and handle it all no matter what the consequences? The documentary shows that Diane Schuler had, to put it kindly, a less than supportive husband who didn’t want kids and just wanted a wife who would take care of him. He wanted her perfectionism as that meant he didn’t have to deal with the burden and turmoil of life.
Was Betsy’s behavior similar to Diane’s? Gene “seemed happy to let his wife run things and take care of him.” Are women finding themselves in a way of life where all the burden is on them, all the responsibilities no matter how numerous and complex, and there is no way out? Are they deciding that for whatever reason they don’t want a way out?
Are we even aware that this is the choice we have made and that there are other choices, other options? I know this question has been asked many times in many ways by people much more experienced with these issues. But these deaths make this question so real and tragic and heartbreaking. It happens to a suburban wife and mother, and it happens to the wife of one of the most renowned actors that ever lived.
I will always wonder why Betsy didn’t have a house cleaner, or caregiver, or cook, or assistant, or anyone, just anyone, to help her with everything she had. I will always wonder why that was her choice.
3/10/25
by Linda Bessin | Nov 22, 2024 | Let's Talk About
Photo by arochman on Freeimages.com
This is my first post since May 2024 and there are reasons for that. After I had finished everything involved in the CEO search that I ran this spring, I wanted to relax. But more than anything, I wanted to mentally and emotionally prepare for Trump to be reelected. Yes, I was one of those people who had no confidence that Biden would be reelected. I decided to spend my time focused on simple things like listening to music, doing needlepoint and learning Spanish on an app. It was my way to deal with the stress of the incoming disaster that I could see heading our way. I gave thanks for being retired and having the space to try to deal with this stress.
When Biden stepped aside and Harris stepped in, it was like a jolt of adrenaline for me. I felt excited for the future. I looked for volunteer opportunities with the campaign and was recruited to be a moderator on the campaign Discord channel for volunteers. The job was greeting people who joined the channel and helping them find their way around and telling them how to get involved. There were 25,000 people already on the channel and I viewed this as a great way to help others and meet people. I became a “Mod” and it was fun. At least at first.
A few weeks into it, the campaign leader for the channel told us all that we now had to push people into phone banking, that we ourselves had to run phone banks and we had to spend hours each week doing this. Every week the pressure placed on us grew and we were told to be to be aggressive in our tactics towards new volunteers. We kept being told “people like being told what to do” which raised the hair on the back of my neck. I also worked a phone bank and we were not warned that we would be calling Republicans in Georgia. The extreme abuse from those we spoke to was something the campaign should have prepared us for and to be thrown into that without any concern for the volunteers also alarmed me. We were pushed to call someone every minute and they kept track of our calls like we were on commission instead of being volunteers.
The stress grew and the atmosphere felt like a boiler room out of Glengarry Glen Ross. I ended up getting sick and then resigning as a volunteer as I barely able to deal with this situation when I was well. I thought, I guess this is politics, it gets ruthless. I guess this is what is needed to win. But as we know now, it wasn’t. I have worked as a volunteer on political campaigns going back decades and I was never treated like that before and I see now it was a sign of things to come.
The campaign was losing, they knew they were losing and they were desperate. Their desperation permeated their decisions, their interactions and then rippled to the farthest reaches and the most distant volunteers. It’s sad and perhaps in a different multiverse they would have been able to have a year or years, rather than 90 days, to run a campaign. But I know that I will never put myself in that situation again. As I said many years ago when I resigned a volunteer Board position, I would not allow myself to be treated this way as an employee, so I certainly won’t tolerate it as a volunteer.
And now here we are. A country where the ruling class is infested with extreme corruption with no guardrails. It does feel like we are back in 2016 but there are some important differences this time around.
In 2017 I wanted to be Linda Hamilton in Terminator 2, I wanted to take on the machines and be a warrior and win. I learned the landscape of activism and eventually found out who the grifters were (and many of them are back in large numbers for this next round). Last time we felt so desperate and thought a hero would come and save the day. “Help us Mueller!” was all over Facebook. Nope, that never happened. Those who are part of the establishment will not dismantle the establishment and not even when the crimes are clear as day (Merritt Garland is a good example of this). The Democratic candidates I met and talked with and supported in 2018 to flip Republican seats in Congress were elected. I then learned that in politics the first thing that happens to supporters like me after a victory is that we are immediately and purposefully pushed away and forgotten.
But I did learn a lot from all that activism work and that helped me be confident enough to run for City Council in 2020. I learned a lot doing that as well (and no, not interested in ever doing that again). I learned more about the city I live in by running for office than I knew from the decades I had lived here.
The election of Trump last time jumpstarted my personal evolution into who I am today. It pushed me out of my comfort zone and into situations where I grew and found I had skills I didn’t realize I had. The confidence I have today is a direct result of making the decision to not sit back and accept the cruelty, inhumanity and insanity that those four years would consist of.
Here we are again. Again, we have an establishment that we cannot depend on to lessen the economic and social blows. That means we have to take care of each other. We have to be prepared in every way we can think of. It’s hard to imagine the worst-case scenarios but think of the ones we do know could happen: A pandemic without cure or end; crippling tariffs that raise the cost of basic goods; persecution of anyone who those in power decides is one of “them”. Think about how each of these will affect your ability to survive. This is what I am doing now, while we have time to prepare.
Timothy Snyder is a Historian and wrote a book in 2017 titled “On Tyranny”.
https://snyder.substack.com/p/on-tyranny
Here is his substack with a brief synopsis of the contents. He is being quoted by many at this time and the most common quote is in the first chapter in the book and I am this seeing over and over:
“Don’t obey in advance”
Don’t fall into line, don’t accept, don’t cooperate. Don’t make it easy.
This is different than what I saw during the prior years of Trump which was, in essence, “Stay Angry – Don’t Look Away – Stay Outraged”. No, don’t do that part any more. Anger and outrage are crippling and exhausting, they will distract your focus and energy and won’t accomplish anything. There is an old Buddhist saying, anger is an acid that destroys the vessel that contains it. Anger is easily manipulated, easily misdirected, and without focus or purpose it destroys and then burns out without any positive impact.
Stay focused and calm, don’t overload yourself. Don’t deplete your energy trying to take it all in. They want to overwhelm you because that will keep you from following rule no.1, don’t obey in advance.
I still plan to do my needlepoint and read books and pick up my Spanish lessons, things I put aside when I was trying to help Harris win. But I won’t check out and I hope you don’t either. My number one priority right now is to take care of myself and my friends and neighbors. People are scared and worried for good reasons and I want to help them get to the next phase of all this. And then after that, we will survive the next phase and so on. Step by step we will continue to take care of each other. And that is what I intend to do for a long time.
11/21/24
by Linda Bessin | May 6, 2024 | Let's Talk About
I spent the first four months of this year doing the most important thing I’ve ever done. Now, to be clear, up to this point I have felt that I have done a lot of important things. My career in evaluating medical malpractice cases meant I decided whether a case should go to trial or be settled. Those decisions affected many people’s lives in very significant ways and I always strove to make those decisions ethically and fairly. Those cases were never about how to save money, they were about doing the right thing and I was fortunate to work for people who had the same priority and values.
My political activism has also been important although the results of that work can be difficult to gage as it takes so much time and so much repeating of effort to get that final result that also affects lives.
My volunteer work has been important as well. This particular achievement, the one I am referring to, has been the most important project I have done as a volunteer.
Two years ago, I became Board Chair of Valley Community Healthcare, a community clinic that provides no and low-cost healthcare to everyone regardless of ability to pay. VCH treats 20,000 – 30,000 patients of all ages every year. It has been serving the public in North Hollywood and North Hills for 54 years and in this time of political, social and economic uncertainty, VCH is a resource that is so crucial for our entire community.
The CEO of VCH is retiring this summer and as Board Chair it was my responsibility to lead the search for her replacement. This process actually began last summer as I learned about how an executive search process works. It also meant conducting interviews with the help of a consultant of people who work at VCH, work with VCH, people who donate and volunteer and have all kinds of relationships with VCH. Because the most challenging portion of this search was going to be knowing not just who we could be searching for but exactly who we needed to be searching for. That could mean redefining the role of the VCH CEO. We needed the input of all these different people in order to do that.
We needed someone who would not only embrace the mission of VCH, and have the skill set to successful manage a healthcare center, but also be able to create a future version that would withstand change and survive. Someone who had the vision – yeah “that vision thing” – to imagine what could be and not just see what is. To anticipate challenges and not just respond.
As I progress through my 60’s I have gained the understanding that the world I grew up in and the world that existed through the first decades of my adulthood no longer exists. It is now a world that belongs to and is shaped by and should be determined by those much younger than me. And it was so crucial for me, as a leader, and for the Search Committee that I formed and the Board who made the hiring decision, to understand that this really was about deciding the future of this organization. It was not just finding someone to fill a job; it was much more than that. The challenges that this new CEO will face have yet to appear but the right person will be able to handle them in this 21st century world.
So since January I have been working basically full time on this project. I wasn’t alone, thankfully, I had a consultant to help guide and a fantastic search firm who did an amazing job. We had almost 500 people from around the country apply for the job when the job was posted at the beginning of the year. And then we narrowed and narrowed and narrowed.
We had 3 finalists who were wonderful and qualified and it was a dilemma – each of them made the decision so very hard. Yet a decision had to be made and we made it as a group, confidently and with sensitivity, objectivity and dedication to what was possible for VCH now and going forward.
And I know that tens of thousands of people now in 2024, and then their children, and then even their grandchildren, will have access to healthcare that will save and change and improve their lives. I played a major role in making this happen. I hope my work to create the beginning of a great future for VCH benefits not just VCH but also all those in the San Fernando Valley who are in need, those who would not otherwise have access to healthcare. Because that’s all that matters.
I wrote recently here about how legacies are overrated. But I feel my work on this search and its successful outcome is my legacy. This is one that makes all the different to thousands of people who will never know anything about me and the role I played in their lives. And that suits me just fine.
5/6/24
