It Starts With You

My last post spoke of our ever dwindling individual effort. Today while searching for a good South African news feed I saw this tiny picture in the sidebar.

The picture is actually and advert for the movement for good. I haven't had a good look at their website yet, but I think you should check it out for yourself. http://www.itstartswithyou.co.za/

The picture instantly sums up everything about my last post. We need to forget about all our petty rivalry, all our stupid jealousy. We need to stop pointing the finger and take a long hard look at ourselves. It's not what everyone else is doing that matters, it's what you do.

On this note I will relate my recent epiphany. I play action soccer and will not deny that in the heat of the moment, when the frustration is building that my anger can boil over. I often release this in action soccer and will occasionally kick out a little at the opposition. Nothing malicious or spiteful or dangerous, just a little kick to let them know I'm there.

Anyway during one particularly heated match, I kicked out at a middle-aged coloured man. Despite the fact that he himself had been doing this the entire match he took it upon himself to swear at me and shove me in the face. Naturally I did raise my own voice a little as well. The incident passed and the game ended after ever rising tensions. After the game he approached me and said something along the lines of sorry. I barely held myself in check and accepted his apology with little grace.

Now a few days after this match I realised something. My frustration at the world and the general uselessness of people was making me less of a person. Rather than trying harder to be a better person I was simply beginning to hate everything and everyone. Those who know me can testify to my ability to hate the enemy sometimes. When I realised this I decided that I would strive everyday to hate less and love more.

This is a challenge for me. Long held grudges are hard to forget but I try and that is all that matters. Everyday I try to be a better person and do my bit to improve the world. If everyone does this the world will only improve. Maybe we can still halt the downward spiral and heal the decay of our world.

Just remember, it starts with you.

My Christmas Wish

Fisrt let me say that I do not see myself as a cynic. I admit that often I may seem that way from the outside and at times I am but for the most part I am an optimist. I see the potential in everything and spend most of my life wishing that things could be just that little bit better. Maybe it is this ever failing hope that brings me to my outward cynicism.

Moving on though from my general world view to my current topic. Decemeber has arrived and this means that once again Christmas is approaching. I guess like most things my view appears cynical with regards to this day and in truth it mostly is. Almost all I see of Christmas these days is a rotting carcass of a once important holiday picked at by the vultures of advertising and materialism.

I remember my youth and the uninhibited excitment every year in the time approaching Christmas. I cannot deny that most of this excitement was created by the allure of presents but this was not all Christmas meant to me. I remember the family all coming together for a huge dinner every Christmas eve and a breakfast every boxing day. I loved these days where all my cousins would be around and the whole family simply enjoyed themselves for a day.

As I have grown older my family has grown apart, and I can remember the first days where the complaints began to grow about the effort that such a dinner required. The grumblings from my mom about how it always fell to her to put in the effort. I do not blame her for her growing contempt of the rest of my families lack of effort, but rather it makes me think of the world in general. So often now people seem to think often incorrectly that it seems to be them who does all the hard work. That they alone endure all the hardships.

When people begin to feel this way these days they seem to simply stop caring and so their own effort however big or small wanes. It is all this that together means we have all stopped caring. And when we all stop making that effort everything simply spirals down.

My wish for this Christmas is no longer that our greed and commercialistic desires will end, I simply wish that everyone will when faced with that tiny feeling that maybe this time someone else can do it, will think again for just a moment and put in that little bit of effort.