Lifelines – A Manifesto for Change
Early days
I was born in
I always knew that as a child I was different. How so? I preferred the company of adults and animals to other kids. I didn’t understand the behaviour of other kids and they frightened me. I was bullied at junior school, beaten up because I had prominent teeth and wore a brace. I can clearly remember the moment when one day I was walking home from school and I realised that all my tormentors would still be stupid and living on the council estate when I would be long gone. I guess I always knew I had a destiny to fulfil.
Even at 11 years old I was a prolific organiser and writer. I wrote published and sold a rather unsuccessful journal named “The Mouse Lover’s Monthly”. That died when I stopped loving mice and moved on to breeding guinea pigs and then owning a pony “Copper”. It was convincing my parents to get me Copper that taught me that persistence pays off and I guess it was looking after Copper that taught me multi-tasking. I would be walking to the stable in school lunch hour eating my sandwichs so I could do something for my pony before rushing back. I was certainly never a fat child. My life outside school revolved around animals and homework.
I guess my desire to succeed really kicked in at secondary school, seeking success and gaining it in the form of brilliant bits of paper, lots of them, and all the highest grades (take a look at my cv: http://www.kerrylturner.blogspot.com/ Impressive eh!! I also found the company of teachers much more stimulating than the company of my peers. I always hated being forced to specialise but had to when I chose my A level subjects. I loved maths. Why? Because it was the only subject where it was possible to get 100%. And that’s what I always strove for. My then teacher, Mr True, advised me to keep my options open and do only one maths subject at A level. I wanted to do English too but it was impossible as maths and English were timetabled together. Instead I did history. It felt similar. Economics was my 3rd choice. I guess that’s where my interest in economics and politics came from.
Career
I left University with a first in Maths and a masters in OR and a host of prizes and joined la creme de la creme at management consultancy "Deloitte Haskins & Sells". I stayed there 20 years through mergers and takeovers that led to me working for IBM. I know now that the rot set in early on. The greed I saw. The partners, greedy for more money. The clients and consultants, playing a silly game. The consultants encouraging change for increased profit to satisfy shareholders at the expense of anything. The clients complying, too lazy to do it themselves and too weak to take responsibility should it fail. (What if it fails? Have a scapegoat. Someone to sue! I guess we sold consulting insurance policies.)
I saw the lot in those 20 years. I was tantalised with the spoils too. They were grooming me to be a partner until I was saved by a horse. I was the first to work part-time to get time to spend with my Shantie (a palomino arab still going strong at 26 yrs old). They all thought I was crazy giving up the spoils for time with a horse. I thought they were crazy not to realise that the most limited and precious resource is time. I didn't understand why they kept wanting more money. The breaking point came when I had been given great feedback at my client (Nestle) but that the head of the group couldn't give me the grade I wanted on my appraisal. This was because it would mean he would have to give me more money than his budget could afford. I said keep the money but give me the grade. He couldn't. The rules wouldn’t allow it! I think it was then I realised that rules aren’t always right.
Luckily (I realise now) I had a nervous breakdown and was offered voluntary redundancy which I took and escaped to
Systems Thinking
But there are great things too that I learnt during my business career. I learnt about a technique called systems thinking (ST) which is THE most important tool in any thinking humans kitbag. ST provides us with a set of tools for understanding what drives the performance of any system (by system I mean a group of things which interact to function as a whole eg a human, a team, a horse and rider (the subject of my book), an organisation, a country, the universe). ST is a key learning tool. It is fundamental. All children should be taught it.
My aim and things I’ve tried
Since leaving work I have been trying to get ST taught to children in the
They are all in this game together. It is a very unfair game but the winners know how to win it and want it to carry on being that way. I asked some of the consultants I know and respect who have children (a) they don't teach their kids ST (b) they are happy to carry on spending very little time with their kids to pay for them to go to some expensive private school so that they can get good jobs later (c) they don't seem to care about anyone else’s children, only their own. I asked them if they thought spending money on their own kids school fees would really help their kids long term when so many couldn't afford it and their kids would have to grow up with those less privileged than them who might probably become criminals etc. They didn't seem to know what I was talking about!
A broad view
I am pretty unusual as a consultant in that I never specialised and you will see from my cv that I have worked in all business disciplines and across most private sector as well as public sector organisations. As a result I've been exposed to a view of the "system" that few have seen. From my work in the Ministry of Justice and Police and the NHS I have come to believe that our system of living is about creating haves and have nots. Our economy relies on sick people and crime to flourish (who are the largest employers?). Even charities are in on the game as I learnt from my experiences last year at one large
The truth is that we humans need very little; to move, learn together, drink lots of water and a little food. That's all. How can you make money and create haves and have nots out of that? Only if people don't think!!!
I have concluded that most of those in the system will not change it. How many times I have been told that (a) there are too few of us thinking this way to make a difference; (b) go and live a quiet life, you're meant to be retired etc. BUT I can't. I was nearly robbed by a pair of pickpockets on a tube in
And our economy thrives on division too. At the base of things there are only two ways to achieve sales growth: increasing the population and increasing the amount sold to each member of that population. If we unify, think, help each other and share how can manufacturers achieve growth?
Why can't I ignore what I see? I could easily benefit from the game, but who really wins???? In the long term NO_ONE.
My idea
Now to why I'm writing this. I believe now that it is possible to make the change via the internet. Kids don't spend all their time at school. (And they don't do sport anymore! I tried to make inroads there through Sports Coaching
In my business career I am a specialist in performance management. I think God put us on this earth to use our brains to manage the performance of all the species on this earth. I know from my career that good performance management relies on having the right performance measures. Ours are all wrong. And our strategies are all wrong too. Our strategies are all about division rather than integration. We see separate entities rather than our part in a greater system and what we don’t see is that the health of the greater system is the most important thing.
From “my” to “our”
Language gets in the way. We use it to divide things. We only seem to see and care about our own "family" that is to say blood relatives. But ultimately we are all part of one big family; the family of "Man". And ultimately we all belong to the earth. We came from the biggest system and it is to that we will return. We need to change our way of seeing the world from “me” to “we” and from “my” to “our”.
And we need to learn to truly love. We don’t really understand “love”. We confuse it with our innate desire to possess and control. True love has no self interest. It doesn’t have a service level agreement. It is wanting what is best for the beloved in the long term. But we are afraid to behave consistently with that. Why? Because we fear loss. And we don’t believe it is possible to love more than one (or a few) people. Yet true love is infinite. It is the only thing that knows no bounds. We are capable of loving every one and every thing. Each of us has the power to feel this but we must let go of our ingrained prejudices.
I too struggle with my desire to possess things. I am human too. Animals have no wish to possess each other. How come they know that possession in impossible to achieve but we don’t? We are all just passing through and our lifetimes are miniscule in the lifetime of our universe.
When I can’t control myself I seek to control those around me. And it doesn’t work. So I try harder. And it still doesn’t work. Why? Because the only person I can truly control is myself. Why waste any more energy trying to control others?
I think a number of people over the ages have understood this. Jesus, Mohamed, Buddha, William Blake to name but a few! All of them saw the hell we were creating on this earth and did what they could with the means in their power at the time to try to change people. If any of these people had been born now and had another chance what would they do? Jesus would certainly know that after his death his disciples let him down big time. A church was created that encouraged death and division and ultimately became one of the wealthiest businesses in the world. And in case you are interested I did contact the Archbishop of Canterbury and you can guess what he thought of my ideas! What would God try next after his failure with Jesus, Mohamed, Buddha, and William Blake? Where did they go wrong? What are the opportunities and threats now?
I also think that others including Napoleon, Lenin and Hitler knew this too and decided to use force to achieve their aims. But force never works long term. My dad taught me that if force is necessary to change a system then you are doing something wrong or the timing is wrong. Anything achieved by force is unsustainable.
Also anything achieved by a reward/punish regime is not optimal. People don’t give their best when they do it in greed for money or in fear of punishment. High performance occurs when a person realises a truth for themselves and then acts on it. Let me give you a real example of this. L is the 4 year old daughter of a friend. We were picking up horse manure in a field together when the following conversation ensued:
L: Sitting down - “I’m bored. I don’t like doing this. I want to do something else.”
Me: Sitting down next to L – “Do you think I enjoy this?”
L: “Don’t know. Do you?”
Me: “No l I don’t. That’s not why I do it. Can you think why I do it despite not enjoying it?”
L: “Don’t know. Cos you’re stupid.”
Me: “What would happen if I didn’t do it?”
L: Pauses then eyes light up “The field would be full of pooh”
Me: “Yes and what would that mean?”
L: More animated “there would be no grass”
Me: “Yes. Good thinking. So what would happen then?”
L: Sadly “ nothing for the horses to eat”
Me: “So what! I’m with you. Let’s go and have some fun.”
L: Upset “the horses would be sad and thin with nothing to eat”
Me: “So what do you think we should do?”
L: “We should pick up the pooh”
Me: “I’m really proud of you. I think you’ve made a great choice for the right reasons. Well done.”
This is how to win hearts and minds: By leading individuals to make better choices. We build commitment and energy by recognising the value of the things we do, however small, and doing them for this reason. Not because we are bribed with money or promises or out of guilt or fear. In my experience facilitating better choices works longer term than “I’ll tell your mum” or “I’’ll give you a sweetie if you do it”.
The same applies in any situation where we are trying to motivate others whether at home or at work. “I’ll give you more money” or “ do it otherwise I’ll fire (or leave) you” may get what you want in the short term but is unlikely to be successful in the long run.
Once we start to see our relationships as systems we can understand that we are not victims and that we have the power to change things.
So where do we go from here
Well I have ranted on haven't I! Let’s get back to teaching children. I have already said that nothing I have tried so far has worked. What can I learn from this? What can I do differently? On a cruise in June I had a brainwave. I asked myself why have I been shown all the things I have been shown in my life? What if I put everything together in a mixing pot what would I get? That is the unique contribution I can make!
Guinea pigs and horses would have to feature I’m sure. Have you seen the movie "G-Force"? Kids love it! Kids also love Facebook. My latest idea is to create a facebook blog where my guineas talk about their way of life. They are systems thinkers and perpetual learners. They see stuff and then wonder about it. They talk together and come to group agreement. It will be in simple language as guineas like to KIS (keep it simple). They will have "Mass Debates" about interesting human topics. I'm going to make it a bit naughty (like Captain Pugwash was) to amuse and attract adults too. I started writing on the 9 hour train journey back from
What do I want to share in this MOTOGP blog? To share what I have learnt and to make people stop and think.
After a certain age we humans don’t like learning. Why? It’s seen as unpractical and not fun. The most important thing to learn is how to control ourselves. Our mind and our body. There is a saying “those who can do, those who can’t teach and those who can’t teach teach PE”. At my school we called it “games”. It seemed to be a combination of torture (running around in a pair of navy blue knickers when there’s snow on the ground is no joke) and just trying to get the steam out of us. Real physical education is an entirely different thing and so so important.
Prevention is always better than cure. Yet our health systems are all about cure. Imagine a world where every child was taught how to care for their precious body and mind properly.
There are so many things I wish I had been told at school. The need to stay broad: The more things I have done the stronger I become in each. The system will push with all its might to make you specialise. To sell you stuff so that you don’t have to think or lift a finger. But no effort means no improvement.
There are others that know what I know. Listen to the words of deep thinking rock stars or the creative giants of the cinema world eg those who created “The Matrix”. Why have they never done anything about it and chosen instead to make money through what they know? And we all hum along to the tunes but don’t think about what we have heard. Do we really listen at all?
Money Money Money
We worship it but what has money done for any of us? Money has divided us. It makes us scared. Scared that we won’t have enough. Scared someone will take it from us or that we’ll lose it. Why do we admire people who have a lot of it? Are we right to do that? We define ourselves by what we do to get more of that stuff called money. Let’s look at some examples:
I am informed by Yahoo that our cute and cuddly celebrity chefs have amassed fortunes in excess of £100million. What jolly nice chaps they are too. On the face of it, it seems very big of them teaching us all to cook such good food. But remember this: cooked things are not good for us! Cooking veggies reduces their nutritional value and increases the Glycaemic index for some foods such as carrots. We are better to eat food in as close to its natural state as possible. Our bodies try to tell us this. We have indigestion. We can’t sleep but we carry on. Imagine a world where everyone ate raw food? How would the celebrity chefs of this world make any money? What about all the kitchen appliance manufacturers?
Take a look at the trendy fashion/makeover specialists on television. Showing people how to make the most of their grotesque figures. Telling them it’s ok to be fat provided they buy the latest fashions. Do you know what sheep think of fashion? They follow it! And the waste it creates. We like to think that these clothes make us unique, but look see how all the other sheep desperately wanting to belong, to not stand out too much, are also clothed the same! Our clothes wear out quickly with all that washing and ironing we’re supposed to be doing but is entirely unnecessary. But it’s good news as it means a lot of people have an occupation either selling or buying useless items that no-one really needs.
We are told to save for a rainy day so what if we choose not to spend? Those nice friendly bank managers will look after our money for us and keep it safe. How? By lending it to others who will use it to either buy more stuff or build new organisations to sell more stuff. We can’t win can we?
Other people called beauticians purport to make us happier by looking after our outside, our beauty! They sell us make up and special creams etc to make us look younger. We can even give a lot of them money to put it on for us if we can’t be bothered ourselves or if we haven’t a friend willing to do it. All my life I have never really worn make-up and only ever used soap and water to wash my face. I decided to try a free make-up session in a Bodyshop branch. I asked the beautician why he was cleaning my face with the products just to put more muck on top. It makes sense to me that if you keep rubbing muck in your face you are going to have big problems with your skin. I believe these products actually age our skin. I look at the women I know who use a lot of these products and their skin is dreadful without it. Luckily for the suppliers that then allows them to supply new products to address the aging problems caused by their products in the first place. Great marketing! The guy was horrified that I used soap and water on my skin but couldn’t really explain why. I guess it was the shock at the amount of money he’d lost as a result over the years!
Hair removal is also good for the beauty industry. Yet more money on creams, machines and waxes. What is this trend for women to want to look like pre-pubescent girls? Is that what men are looking for? The body of a child? And what about the men too? Imagine the pain of having your “back, sack and crack” hair removed!
We’re told that natural smells aren’t good. We need to mask them with all kinds of perfumes, deodorants and toiletries. And the more we wash, the more the smell returns and the more products we have to use. Why is this? Could it be that there is a natural balance to our body systems that these products upset? Would we dare to stop using them for a period to see what happened?
And of course the ultimate scam is the cosmetic surgery one. Cosmetic surgeons are some of the richest people in the world in money terms but must be so poor on the inside. I guess they would say they are satisfying a demand. But surely they need to be honest with their clients about the long term impact of such surgery. And I’m not just talking about boobs and face lifts, laser eye surgery is in the same class. It is cosmetic surgery.
If I was feeling low my partner used to say “go get your hair done that’s what other women do”. You deserve a treat. It’s every woman’s right! And the best way to make more money is as a ladies hairdresser? Short hair cuts.
I love my animals because they aren’t interested in the outside of a person. They don’t care about money, clothes, what car you drive or your hairstyle. They care about what’s inside you. How confident and sure you are. Whether they can trust you. How mentally strong you are. They read and care about our feelings. The way things really are, not about how things look. Why can’t we?
Look harder and we find that other surgeons are not much better than our cosmeticians. How many surgeons tell someone that they don’t need surgery? The fact is that a surgeon is a surgeon because he likes experimenting and chopping into peoples bodies. How many of them have had the ops they do themselves?
I went to an orthopaedic surgeon because I had been suffering with a bad back for many years (and keeping a whole hord of osteopaths, Alexander Technique teachers and various others in clover as a result). The MRI scan he took showed my degenerated disc but luckily he told me about a disc replacement operation. A relatively new procedure, and me an ideal candidate, as other than one disc all my others were pristine. After learning that the procedure would involve going in through my abdomen and disturbing every organ in that area and that there would be no guarantees as to whether it would work or not I quickly decided no to that. I also refused the facet joint injection I was offered next. He didn’t understand why. I had private medical insurance. The op wouldn’t cost me a dime! He had failed to count the long term cost to my health as I had and he reluctantly settled for spending a little of my medical insurers bottom line on an intensive week of proper physiotherapy and I learnt pilates modified for people with my condition. I have never looked back.
Why do we collude with the surgeons? Perhaps it is because we are in pain and we want it to end. Is it that we want the quick fix with as little effort as possible? Is it that no-one told us from a child how to look after our bodies properly? Because if we did we wouldn’t need many of these ops. But then what would happen to surgeons? We all love their dickie bows and cheeky grins. It may well wipe the smile off their chubby faces!
The issue is that when your only tool is a hammer you treat every problem as a nail. But all problems are different. And we create all of them. Surgery only treats symptoms. Unless addressed the root causes will reek their damage again. And its not only cosmetic surgery that’s fashionable. I’m told that if you take a look at the statistics they show that around each specialist hospital you will find a skewed population who have undergone surgery in that specialism. Now why could that be? The other interesting behaviour is that people actually believe that if they have surgery they are getting a great “deal”. I’ve heard some people proudly boasting how much their surgery actually cost. “What a bargain I got it for free! They say.”
Health screening programmes also help create more jobs for the boys (and girls). Why do we spend valuable time and money looking for problems instead of teaching behaviours which would prevent these problems occurring?
What about our friendly family GP? What incentive is there for any Dr to help make you well? If he does he will lose money the way the current system operates. The National Health Service is actually a National Illness System designed to employ huge numbers of people. How do I know this? I was seconded to the Department of Health for 6 months to work on the staff costings for the Public Expenditure Survey round. If people weren’t ill what would happen to all those employees? How would they earn the money to pay for all the rubbish they want but don’t really need? How would we grow our economy?
Which brings me nicely to those clever people at the Pharmaceutical companies. You have a problem? They have a pill for it! Even pills to cure our unhappiness. No problem. And the Drs keep prescribing. Why? Is it because they don’t have time to consider each one of us as an individual? Is it because it’s easier than teaching us how to look after our bodies? Is it because they don’t know how to look after bodies? Is it because they get paid to prescribe?
There is even a new class of health professional called a “healer”. These people often charge huge amounts of money to do “distance healing”. And others actually pay them for it. They don’t think about how it could work. They don’t realise that money will not heal us. The greatest healer is time (patience and persistence) and correct habits. Only learning will heal. All we are is the sum of our own choices and those of our ancestors. We can’t change the choices of our ancestors. But we can change our own choices. But only if we think.
At a really low point in my life suffering from back pain and my dad lying in hospital after a stroke I was introduced to a Moroccan fortune teller by a friend. I was desperate for help myself and I would have tried anything. She read the remains of coffee grounds, my palm and tarot cards. She told me I was one of the strongest people in the world and that I would heal many people. I thought she was crazy. At a low point I didn’t believe her. I thought it was what she must say to everyone. More recently I have asked other people she saw. She didn’t tell them that. It is a relatively small event in my life but forms part of a pattern that tells me what I was born to do. Look at your patterns. What were you born to do?
To fit in we repress what our hearts are telling us. And when we repress ourselves we end up depressed. Perhaps that is why depression is the fastest growing illness in the western world? Believe me I know I have suffered.
And psychiatrists, I have a fair bit of personal experience with representatives of this profession. They cannot explain how their drugs work. They mix a cocktail of drugs and then have no idea which one has worked or not. They don’t monitor progress with any objective data. They think that waiting 7 months to be invited to a group counselling session is good service. Ultimately the only person that can heal us is ourselves. By facing up to our demons, our scary thoughts, and being prepared to stand alone with our beliefs. To do what’s right even when it is different to what others dictate. But being ill is seen as a worthy occupation. And it gives lots of others a worthy occupation too as carers.
A couple of years ago I visited a charity in Manchester helping to rehabilitate folk with long term mental illness problems so that they can have an occupation and work again. Of the folk who turn up for an initial discussion only 10% go on to start the programme. Why? Because (a) they will have less money in the short run; and (b) their families rely on them for their occupation and income. How do you break through that?
And what about masseurs. That’s the latest trend, joining the ranks of the physios, osteopaths and chiropractors. A great little cash based business that one. People who don’t know any better (because they never got a true physical education at school or anywhere) paying people to touch them? For years I suffered with a bad back. The money I handed over to these therapists. Not one of them taught me how to build my strength so that I wouldn’t hurt. Why? I can only conclude that they didn’t want me to get better or didn’t know any better. Either way I feel uncomfortable at those thoughts.
Even a close friend of ours who is a masseur is in on this game and invited me to watch him at work. I noticed a book on his shelf ”The Bodycontrol Pilates Manual”. I asked him if he taught his clients any of the exercises in the book for their conditions. Guess what? He had never read the book! But we collude with these people. The self same people who are happy to pay strangers to touch them often do not trust even their closest friends to touch them. Where is the logic in that? Are we only happy when we pay for things?
All other animals use touch as a key sense. They greet each other in this way. My animals are great barometers for me. How do they react to a stranger? The one’s they feel they can trust will be allowed to touch them. No money exchanges hands. I have touched some of the world’s highest trained athletes and felt all their muscle structure. Of course I’m talking about horses. Woe betide me if I had dared to touch any of their riders! Horses are great as they become an extension of us and strangers will come over to touch and caress them. And we make a connection in that way.
All these professions give rise to a large supporting industry, the qualifications business, whose role is to manufacture and sell new qualifications. And alongside that the “Professional Indemnity Insurance” industry. Because you never know who might try to sue you for not having done your job properly! Why not ensure you do your job properly in the first place and save the money on the insurance?
Better still if you’re a company pay someone else to do your job eg a consultant. Then if it goes wrong you have someone else to blame. The consultants will come in and re-engineer your processes. Afterwards your staff will follow the processes for woe betide anyone having a creative thought. A new department will grow called “compliance” and soon there can be no learning. But after all the staff only turn up for the money. So who cares?
Which brings us nicely to another trusted well paid profession, the legal profession. We trust them implicitly to do what is right and fair. But are we right to trust them when at least 50% of them must be liars or ill informed at any time? And the worst class of lawyer are those operating in the make money by blaming industry. They tell us that things are never our fault. It is always someone else’s fault. And that we deserve to be paid for our injuries.
Is that really so? Does money really make amends or make things better? Some years ago my dad had a hernia op on the NHS. Afterwards he suffered a major infection and was in hospital (nearly losing his testicles as a result). When my dad was at a low point some scum bag lawyer visited him in hospital to encourage him to claim against the NHS. My dad refused this man’s help. He saw that if more and more people do this soon surgeons will be unable to help anyone. And suing the NHS is like suing yourself. After all, we pay for it. Well, some of us do! How can we learn anything when we blame others for our mistakes rather than owning up that we are human and we erred?
Even the environmentally friendly brigade are in on the game. Let’s sell solar panels, low energy products, light bulbs, cars etc. I even clearly remember a certain charismatic speaker getting a standing ovation at the Pegasus Systems Thinking conference in
But the truth is that the big difference we make environmentally is not in what we buy but in what we do. Our habits! It’s easier to buy an energy efficient light bulb than turn off the lights and go to bed earlier! It’s easier to buy solar panels than cut down on the number of showers we take. It’s easier to buy the latest gadget than change any of our ingrained bad habits most of which we don’t see as bad. Just simply what everyone else is doing!
I learnt something very powerful through line-dancing. If I concentrate on my self when dancing I rarely go wrong but if I catch sight of someone else going wrong I’m apt to do the same myself. And several dancers have noticed the same!
And whilst mentioning seeing lets think about opticians. Have you ever wondered why eye tests are mainly free? Have you noticed your prescription changes ever so slightly, but just enough so that you buy new glasses!!!! And how from permanent long life contact lenses we now have throw-away daily wear ones?
Waste not want not
We live in a throwaway society where obsolescence is built in. We create more and more waste because we need it to fund the growth of our businesses. And we want growth above anything else. It is never questioned. Why do we want growth? Because growth creates opportunities to create a career structure and a hierarchy. Where the lower paid workers at the bottom of the hierarchy have the chance to become one of the big boys at the top and earn megabucks. These structures are designed to tempt our greed. And create a small number of “haves”. And it suits the government too because that way all our tax is paid at source.
What if everyone was self employed? That way these hierarchies could not exist. People would have to work in partnership with each other. There would be nowhere to hide for the shirkers and hangers on. But the government would struggle to control and raise taxes. I think we need to really think again about this model for our society.
In the mean time recycling is a step in the right direction. We all feel good about our visits to the bottle bank. We are green! But what a waste of effort and fuel recycling all that stuff that wasn’t necessary in the first place. All organisations encouraging/enabling recycling are helpful. Ebay and charity shops are a step in the right direction. But best of all would be if we only buy what we really need, take care of it and use it for our lifetime.
My nan used to always say “money is the root of all evil”. But how can pieces of paper and bits of cheap metal cause such trouble? What if there was no such thing as money? What if it suddenly disappeared (as it most surely one will day)? What would happen then? How would we reorganise our lives?
‘Owt for Nowt
We admire those who have made a lot of money for very little effort. And we look for as much as possible for as little as possible ourselves. Why is this? Our desire for something for nothing leaves farmers unable to provide a good life for their animals and small family businesses, like corner shops, unable to survive and compete with the big boy supermarkets.
And girls can always have a paid career as a mum. Either paid by the state (ie we taxpayers) or by some poor bloke who couldn’t think beyond the end of his dick. Whole generations have been born and raised in this way. Living on the social and producing more and more population. And funnily enough no qualifications are needed for the role of parenting. Any tom, dick or harry, or should I say Tammy, Debs or Kylie, can have children and yet if I want to breed a dog I need a license. Strange that. But more kids means more people to sell stuff to.
And the other something for nothing brigade are our retired public servants. All retired early on cracking pensions and living longer and longer in their luxury. Who do they think are paying for their lifestyles? How sustainable is it?
The problem is that over time there will be an increasing proportion of the population claiming something for nothing and we will be unable to change the system because the majority of the electorate rely on it as it is. A good example of this is the poll tax riots back in Maggie Thatcher’s era. I must say I don’t understand why non taxpayers get the vote. Why should non-contributors have an influence over something they contribute nothing to?
A way forward
This all sounds very depressing but remember that there is nothing I have talked about here that can’t be undone really easily by everyone of you. And we can surely start by giving our children a good physical and mental education. But maybe not by our current set of teachers. But let’s not get too heavy on the teachers, remember that we are all teachers and pupils too. Whether we like it or not we influence every being we come into contact with, but is that connection positive or negative? We choose.
We like to believe that we have no power to change all of this. But the truth is that we do. We have it in the choices we make in each day of our lives.
If we choose to do more, learn more instead of paying others to do it.
If we stop looking for something for nothing.
If we stop passing the blame onto others and take responsibility for our own choices.
If we fall in love with learning and helping each other again this world could once again be a beautiful and heavenly place.
Why not start today?
The decision is yours and yours alone.
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