I’ve always wanted to travel to Cuba, but never got around to it. Well, the time has come and decided it was time to go. Shortly after I purchased my plane ticket, the President issued a memorandum directed to eliminate individual people to people contact and just like that travel was forever going to change at least for the time being. Unlucky for me, people to people contact is how I intend to travel to Cuba, so I frantically combed the internet searching for its effects. Luckily, the department that has oversight of Cuba sanctions: Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) anticipated this directive and issued an FAQ assuring no changes until the new policies are implemented.
A memorandum is not required to be published, however, Executive Orders do need to be published and are effective when they are signed. Subsequently, if needed, the affected departments need to create policies which can take months. Conversely, some directives seem to be expressions of intent to change rather than actual change. Lucky for me, the Cuba directive is more of an intent and thus the policies haven’t been implemented as of 7/28/17. This is great news because it shows that I still have time to go to Cuba. It’s also showing that even when a politician promises immediate action, typically it won’t be effective immediately and historically, they’ve taken months to complete. Best of all, an Executive Order cannot violate a federal law which means any changes it attempts to create are stemming from existing laws. In this directive it is seeking for the creation of policies which OFAC has reported may take months. Looking at it from as an average citizen, we can presume that any effects an Executive order/directive will be minimal and most of us won’t see a difference in our day to day life. I personally am being affected by this memo, but not to the extent I initially thought. When the memo was first issued I thought I would have to cancel my trip and my dream to travel to Cuba was lost in the abyss, only to later find out that I was still able to travel because its effect up to this point is minimal. Other than making it more difficult to travel to Cuba, but not impossible, this memo does not adversely affect my everyday life.
Why should you care about the effects of an Executive order? Simply put, because the direction an Executive leader takes may change the culture and if it’s not something that helps improve your quality of life, then you have to find a way to improve it yourself. Life sends you curveballs and knocks you off your horse, but you are the one who needs to get up again and keep moving forward. Will most executive orders/memorandums actually affect you? Not really, because they are tied in with federal law and the federal law is the law of the land. The best thing you can do is remember that if the government is trying to impede on your ability to live a great life, you must be able to take control of your life and you must drive it in the direction you desire. If you want to go to the park, go! If you want to go biking, then go! If you want to travel to a different country, you know my answer I say go! Today is the day you start thinking about HOW YOU CAN do something and not think about the reasons you can’t do something. When you can master this, you will start to see a significant improvement in your quality of life simply because you are doing the things that you love. I challenge you to think of one thing that you want to do today, write it down in the comments and then do it!
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