“I sometimes think if I wasn’t born as a gay person in a rural area, if I wasn’t a survivor of suicide attempts, if I would be in the role that I’m in and I actually don’t think I would be, I think maybe I’d be… running my Dad’s fly fishing shop with two kids in the Adirondacks, but I think that going through these experiences is what drew me into a life of wanting to make a big difference while I’m on this planet and feeling the urgency… I’ve always felt an urgency to do a lot while I’m here and maybe just being a survivor of suicide, I always felt that life is going to go by very quickly and what am I going to do while I’m here and so I picked what I think is one of the best paths to make the biggest impact while we’re here. Because life goes by like that, it really does if you think about it, and no one ever says at a memorial service ‘He took the best vacations’ or ‘He had the best cars and the best clothes’ ~ No, it’s ‘This is what he did, these are people he touched, these are the people he helped.'” ~ Erik Bottcher
New York City Council Member Erik Bottcher, of District 3, is one of those wonderful people who is so rarely seen in photos on his own that finding the ones here took several tries perusing an endless parade of people on Bottcher’s FaceBook feed – a testament to his authentic care and concern for his fellow citizens. The opening salvo of this post comes from Bottcher himself, and the refreshingly open and honest revelations of experiences that many of us have dealt with and never talked about is what sets him apart from his political cohorts. It also drives him to make a difference while he’s here, and there’s something noble and poignant of someone who can be so authentically and powerfully himself. It sends a badly-needed message to those of us who need to hear we are not alone, that there is a place for us in the world if we want to make one, that every single one of us matters. For that heroic mission, taken one step, one district, one election at a time, Bottcher earns this Dazzler of the Day.
{Check out his Council Member page here, and his social media link tree here.}
