Light up the room
Beginning to write on this think like a bit of a journal I guess and its daunting to leave it all hanging in the ether but I feel that it is the right time that I started to get out of me what is inside. If it resonates with at least one person then it will have found its way to land in the correct spot. I feel very passionate about a lot of things and can see that while I am pretty far from the expert, a career in education has given me insight into the human condition beyond the superficial and what's more it allows me to see the effects of what young people are being influenced by.
I engage in many conversations with people surrounding the general demeanour of people (particularly young people) and how it seems to be becoming more and more disrespectful - there seems to be a general lack of regard for our fellow human. There are countless examples of this from the increase in knife crime in the UK, to the recent rise of the rhetoric form the far right , bananas being thrown onto the football pitches of the world to taunt black players for making simple errors on the pitch...Bakayo Saka, Marcus Rashford and Vinicius Jr to name but a few. More and more vile comments being produced on the pages of the social media outlets and targeting celebrities and other public figures for the societal wrong doings.
The recent death of some global superstars such as Liam Payne, formerly a part of UK supergroup One Direction further highlights mental ill health statistics that are on the rise. You do not have to look any further that the suicide statistics in any modernised country (e.g.UK, US, Australia etc) and they will alarm you. According the the Australian bureau of statistics, in 2022 there were 3249 deaths by suicide - 75% of which were male meaning that men are 3 times more likely to take their own life than women. Suicide remains the leading cause of death for people aged 15 - 49 surpassing car accidents and certain diseases in this age category. This means that while we experience 24 hours 9 people will take their own life today and what is perhaps even more alarming is that another 180 people will attempt to kill themselves and fail. The vast majority of them will be male. Interesting when we seem to live in a patriarchal society that opens doors for men and we can perhaps leave this for another post.
So is it that the place is becoming darker? Are the lights are dimming on the human race? Are values are no longer held on to as the 'North star' for people, or is it that people just value the wrong things or do the not really HAVE values? Maybe people don't believe in themselves enough to get through the pain and distress they are in and just are looking for a way out. My wife always says that it is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. I agree with this statement but I think it is much more complex than this and is perhaps the end result of a long and complicated illness. Cancer sufferers go through months and months of treatment prior to them becoming terminal and then unfortunately despite the wonders of modern medicine, they still pass away. We speak of the brave fight and battle that these cancer patients have in the wake of them dying knowing that their fate was sealed by the awful disease. Is it not the same with mental ill health? Cancer that some get treatment and live, but sadly some get treatment and die and we don't get to play God here with who lives and who dies.
As humans (and let me clarify the following statement that I am particularly guilty of this myself) we are quick to judge a situation and label it as something. Stephen Covey writes in his book '7 habits of highly effective people' about seeking first to understand. If all we ever do is judge then how do we reach a point where we understand our fellow human and that our point of view is the point of truth?
I am reminded of two stories here - one involving paradigm shift which is essentially an exercise in identifying that what you see and how you process a situation is not necessarily what is actually happening. The other story speaks of making a difference and choosing actively to make a difference in a positive space.
The Paradigm shift - Your perspective may need adjustment
Imagine a busy train carriage not dissimilar to the one that you maybe on right now and reading this post. At the next stop a man wearing noise cancelling headphones boards the train with his 3 young children who are wild. I mean these kids are going nuts, jumping over seats and bashing into people and disturbing the relative peace that comes from not trying to make eye contact with anyone on the train for fear of striking up some mundane conversation. This peace is broken by the sound of these kids screaming and causing havoc for the evening commuters. You are seated opposite the man with the headphones who continues to ignore his children as they tear up and down the train carriage upsetting everyone on already on the train. You look around at the other commuters and catch each others glances as if to say 'Is anyone going to talk to this guy about his awful children and why he isn't doing anything about it?'. It is obvious that no one is prepared to be that guy, so its on you.
After a few minutes of this, you just cannot stand for this any longer, the kids are feral and you have had enough. Not all heroes wear capes and you have images of the commuters high fiving you as you take down the poor excuse for a parent. This guy is now responsible for the degradation of society and the entire reason that the whole place is becoming darker and its on YOU to save the world from this scourge...so you make your approach, tapping him gently on the shoulder and signalling to remove his headphones. Stony faced, he obliges and you can hear the noise of some rather hardcore heavy metal playing through the headphones.
You ask him "Why are you allowing your kids to wreak havoc on this train?", you go on to exclaim, "They are your kids, get them under control as their behaviour is disgusting!". With this, the man very calmly replies, "I will not be telling my kids to stop" and places his headphones back over his ears to block out the sound again. Taken aback, and now quite clearly angry, you signal for him once more to remove his headphones. Again he obliges and removes his headphones.
"What? So you aren't going to deal with your kids, despite them making everyone on the train uncomfortable on their commute?", you say with a loud, stern tone so that everyone else is now invested in this. The guy very calmly replies, "Ordinarily my kids are very well behaved and I would never condone such antics in public. However, I have just brought them from the hospital where we had to switch off their mothers life support machine after she was involved in a serious road traffic accident. So forgive me if i repeat that I will not be dealing with my kids".
The point is that we have no idea what people are carrying and we will continue to be ignorant around this until we seek first to understand. So in a world where you get to choose to be anything you want - choose to be kind.
The sea stars - Making a difference
So a man is sitting on the sand dunes watching the sunset on a beach as the tide is heading out. Another man is walking along the beach and the high tide has brought with it thousands and thousands of sea stars (or starfish depending on where you are reading this from). As he walks along the beach and meets one of these sea stars he bends down picks it up and throws it into the ocean. Every couple of feet that he walks for as far as the eye can see there are sea stars.
The man on the dunes calls out to him and says, "Hey mate, what are you doing?", to which the man cries out, "I'm saving each one of these sea stars by throwing them back into the ocean. By the time the tide comes back in they will have all perished". The man on the dunes laughs and say, "Mate, there is no way that you can save them all!". With this, the man on the beach finds the next sea star and launches it into the sea and cries out to the man on the dunes, "No! You're right...but i saved THAT one didn't I?".
The advice...
If we are lucky enough to be granted another 24hours on planet earth by simply waking up you will be making a difference to your surroundings. The fact that you exist means that even from the fact that your heat in your body is warming the molecules of air around you, that you are breathing the atmosphere and taking oxygen - you ARE already influencing your immediate surroundings. The only thing you really need to do is ask yourself one question.
"Do I want to make a positive or a negative difference today?"
If you think of your life and all the moments in it as a series of rooms that you enter into, try to leave the room brighter than when you entered it. Oh and If you find a room that is dark...light up the room.