Shape the change you want to see…[i]
“I never complain about politicians…
Everybody says they suck!
But where do people think these politicians come from?
They don’t fall out of the sky.
They don’t pass through some membrane from another reality.
They come from South African parents, South African families, South African homes, South African schools, South African churches, South African businesses, and South African universities—and they get elected by South African citizens.
This is the best we can do folks. This is what we have to offer—it’s what our system produces.
Garbage in – garbage out.
If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you will get selfish ignorant politicians.
And turning them out every few years will do you no good, you will just wind up with another bunch of selfish ignorant South Africans.
So, just maybe, just maybe it’s not the politicians who suck!
Maybe something else sucks.
Maybe something else sucks around here – like the public – like the citizens.
Yea, the citizens suck!
Because if it is really the fault of these politicians, then where are all the other bright people of conscience?
Where are all the bright honest intelligent South Africans ready to step in and save the nation and lead the way?
We don’t have people like that in this country. Everybody is at the mall, in their residential estates, swanking in their SUVs, and complaining about the state of the nation at their dinner parties…or scraping a living from the dust.”
What are the take-outs here?
- Each of us has social agency – to think, choose and act.
- The day you imagine you have no social agency is the day you cease to make a contribution to yourself, and others.
- If you want to know who or what is almost exclusively responsible for success and failure—in any of your life areas – personal, home, learning, work, team, community and country—look in the mirror.
- The mess that South Africa finds itself in is self-created. It is a cocktail of those who have done as they please with no sense of accountability and consequence, and those who have been indifferent.
- The only way out of a pickle is to lead—to go first, to take personal responsibility to fix it, to do the right things at the right time for the right people.
Nobody is coming to the rescue. We are our only hope – first and last.
So, pose these two questions to yourself:
- When I look in the mirror, what has my contribution been to South Africa’s condition? Note: not your condition, not your neat comfortable life, but South Africa’s.
- If I want South Africa to be a success (is there anybody who does not?)—to be a country that is fantastic to live in (for all), to work and play, to be safe, to be proud of, to get old in, and to leave in better shape for the next generations—what am I willing to do?
Influential leaders go first and take personal responsibility to shape lives for the better.
Regards,
Colin Donian
Shaping lives for the better
[i] A lightly redacted and contextualised version of a George Carlin commentary (about the USA, but it applies all over). If you think you have an appetite for GC, you’ll find this video on YouTube with all his others. Caution: he is crass and crude, but he tells it like it is.
