Stewardship is a practice that seems to get overlooked easily and I think that is because sometimes we get lost in what it actually is. Ownership means “This is mine,” while Stewardship means “This has been entrusted to me.”
Stewardship varies – it can mean taking care of your own property, taking care of your community, or taking care of the next generation. Regardless of the circumstance, stewardship means thinking beyond today. Being a good steward does come with it’s challenges, especially when dealing with a County’s finances. It’s less about the mindset that we should spend less money and more about the mindset of being financially responsible and making every dollar accomplish a shared goal of creating a thriving and successful County.
Stewardship can bring challenges – Growth isn’t bad and change isn’t bad. The trick here is how we accomplish these things without either losing the identity of our County or selling out our future generations. We have so much at stake with every decision we make, and when it comes to small counties like ours, the room for error is tiny. This is why it is so critical to fully vet the candidates for every office and make sure that you are getting the right people in the right places. Public trust isn’t something that is earned once, it’s something that needs to be earned every day.
I’ve spoke about my aviation past and the further separated I am from that previous life, the more I realize how it shaped me in many aspects of my current life. Generally speaking, the mechanics don’t own the aircraft, we are entrusted with them. I used to sign my name into a logbook almost every day certifying that my aircraft was safe for use. I wasn’t just signing a sheet in a logbook, I was putting my name, reputation, and future on that line by saying that this aircraft was safe. It didn’t belong to me, but I was entrusted to take care of it and the lives of those who boarded it.
Stewardship goes beyond local government – Parents are stewards of their children, Farmers are stewards of their land, Teachers are stewards of our future, and Citizens are stewards of their communities. We are all stewards of things that we’ve been entrusted with, and our community will be stronger when we all do our part.
None of us truly own Fulton County, we’re just the stewards of it for a little while and our duty is to make it better for the future.