By Horace Palacio: Let me ask you the most important question you will hear this week.
Who is responsible for your life?
Not your neighbor’s life. Not the country’s problems. Your life. Your habits, your skills, your savings, your choices, your future. Who owns that?
Because in Belize we have developed a dangerous answer. We say, the government. My life is hard because of the government. I did not get ahead because of the government. My business failed, my plans collapsed, my dreams died, all because of the government.
Now, before anyone accuses Horace of going soft on the powerful, let me put the balance in place first, plainly and honestly.
Government failure in Belize is real. The bad roads are real. The struggling schools are real. The corruption is real. The cost of living squeezing families is real. These things are not in your imagination, and they are not small. A weak government makes every climb steeper, and it is right, it is your duty as a citizen, to demand better, to criticize loudly, to vote wisely, and to hold every administration’s feet to the fire. I write columns doing exactly that almost every week, and I will never stop.
So no, this article is not letting government off the hook.
This article is about a different hook entirely. Because there are two ledgers in every citizen’s life, and our confusion between them is quietly destroying people.
Ledger one belongs to the government. Security, roads, schools, honest management of public money, fair rules for all. When those fail, blame away. March, write, vote, demand. That ledger is theirs, and accountability is the price of power.
Ledger two belongs to you. Whether you woke up early today. Whether you learned a skill this year. Whether you saved anything this month. Whether you kept your word, showed up on time, treated people well, tried again after failing. No ministry controls that ledger. No election changes it. That one is yours alone.
The tragedy in Belize is that we have started writing everything from ledger two into ledger one. Every personal disappointment gets mailed to Belmopan. And I understand why, because blame is the most comfortable drug in the world. It feels like justice. It costs nothing. It requires nothing. And it changes absolutely nothing.
Worse than nothing. Listen closely to what blame actually does, because this is the heart of it.
The moment you say the government ruined my life, you have made a declaration. You have declared that the government owns your life. Think about that. The politician you distrust the most, you have just handed him the steering wheel of your future. Why would you give the very people you complain about that much power over you?
Blaming government for your personal failures is not rebellion against the powerful. It is surrender to them.
Now let me give you the test that settles this, and every Belizean knows it is true because every Belizean has seen it.
Take two men from the same village. Same government. Same roads. Same taxes. Same economy. Same everything. Ten years pass. One has built something, a trade, a small business, a family moving forward. The other is exactly where he started, except angrier.
Same government. Different lives. How?
If government alone decided our outcomes, then everyone living under the same government would have the same life. They do not. Which proves that something else is deciding too, something that sits much closer to home. The daily choices. The discipline. The refusal to quit. Government sets the weather, yes. But you still decide whether you plant.
And here is the balance again, because I promised it and I will keep it. Is it fair that the Belizean must build in harder weather than someone born elsewhere? No. It is not fair. The potholes, the red tape, the costs, they are a real tax on your effort, and we must keep fighting to lower that tax. But hear this. Unfair does not mean impossible. In every era of this country, under every government, red and blue, good and bad, some Belizeans built. The credit unions were built. The businesses were built. The families were raised. Those builders did not wait for a perfect government, because a perfect government has never existed anywhere on this earth. If perfect government is your starting condition, you have scheduled your life to begin never.
So what does the wise Belizean do? Both things. This was never a choice between citizenship and responsibility. It is a marriage of the two.
Be a fierce citizen. Vote like it matters, because it does. Criticize what deserves criticism. Demand the roads, the schools, the honesty your taxes paid for. Take the government’s ledger and audit it without mercy.
Then go home, open your own ledger, and audit that one with the same honesty. Did I grow this year? Did I save? Did I learn? Did I show up? Because no minister will ever answer for that page. Only you.
The ballot box is where you judge the government. The mirror is where you judge yourself. A country in trouble begins to heal when its people stop confusing the two.
So let me close with the truth underneath it all.
The Government of Belize, whoever holds it, will never love your dream the way you do. It will never wake up for it, sacrifice for it, or fight for it. That was always your job, and honestly, would you really want it any other way? Your life belonging to you is not the burden. It is the freedom.
Blame the government for what the government owes you. Then take your life back from the excuse, and build.
Belize needs better governments, yes. But even more than that, Belize needs Belizeans who refuse to wait for one.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author, Horace Palacio, and do not necessarily reflect the views or editorial stance of Breaking Belize News.
The post Hold the government accountable for its job, but never hand it the blame for yours appeared first on Belize News and Opinion on www.breakingbelizenews.com.
By Horace Palacio: Let me ask you the most important question you will hear this week. Who is responsible for your life? Not your neighbor’s life. Not the country’s problems. Your life. Your habits, your skills, your savings, your choices, your future. Who owns that? Because in Belize we have developed a dangerous answer. We
The post Hold the government accountable for its job, but never hand it the blame for yours appeared first on Belize News and Opinion on www.breakingbelizenews.com.
