BH resident Valerie Frankel recently set out on a mission to curb her complaining, and chronicled her quest in Good Housekeeping. In her piece, Frankel speaks to Marty Markowitz about how politicians replace words with negative connotations with positive sounding words:
I called Marty Markowitz, president of the great borough of Brooklyn (a.k.a. home), to ask about semantics versus reality. “You can be optimistic and realistic at the same time,” he said. “I know times are tough and people are hurting, but if you’ve got a sour puss, everyone feels sour along with you. Those of us in leadership positions have to reinforce the positive instead of dwelling on the negative.” He encouraged me to count my blessings. Yes, my fridge was broken, but I could afford take-out. I still had a house to keep my broken fridge in.
I tried to channel Marty, to put on a sunshiny puss. But it was a struggle — I mean, a journey. Clearly I had no future in politics.
