Be the change you wish to see in the world.

It was great soaking up my Mum’s company in Northern Ireland this past summer.  She is ever good-natured and easy going.  How different the rest of the world would be if there were more like her.  Mind you, thank goodness there is only one of me.  I am difficult company.  Argumentative, challenging, confrontational and moody.  Enough said! 

In Northern Ireland they have moved the post offices.  I have become accustomed to stopping elderly shoppers and asking them if they know where the PO has moved.  Invariably, they lead me to where the post office used to be and then stand blinking in confusion as to what has happened.  I know the feeling.  In towns all over the post offices have been transported from where they have been for decades.  In this unpredictable world, not even this has remained unaltered.  Suddenly, I feel like the elderly, confused by the speed of change I see around me.  When a local person leads me to a non-existent post office, I feel an irrational urge to commiserate and give them a hug in sympathy at all this shuffling.  It must be due to closures happening all over the place.  

Another shocking change is the silence of electric cars or hybrids.  Here in Malta I was walking down Stella Maris St in Sliema when I was nearly run over by one.  Their silence means there is no warning, you don't hear them at all.  These machines may reduce the demand on our fossil fuels but they are killing a disproportionate number of us.  Suddenly, we are realizing just how much we use our ears to protect us from road accidents.  Do a search on this topic and simply everyone is protesting at the deaths resulting.

http://www.slate.com/articles/business/gearbox/2012/05/hybrid_and_electric_cars_too_quiet_why_they_re_dangerous_to_pedestrians_.html

“And that, it turns out, is a problem. Thanks to the Pedestrian Safety Act of 2010, by this summer the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration is required to initiate a rulemaking process for minimal vehicle noise—not how quiet, but how loud a car must be.  Hybrids and electric cars are too quiet for the blind or even the fully sighted to hear them coming. 

hybrids and electric vehicles are 37 percent more likely to hit walkers and 66 percent more likely to collide with cyclists than traditional gas-powered cars.”

Others are making the same point,

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/news/9688619/Plan-to-tackle-silent-killer-electric-cars.html

These cars are just too silent!  So proposed legislation is trying to make them noisier. Change is hard to cope with and the elderly find it hardest of all.  Shuting post offices may seem a small step but these local centres served a multitude of needs in small communities.  Isolation kills and shared spaces are becoming harder to find.  Don't get me wrong change can be good but change for change's sake is questionable.

I used to bemoan the changes in the education system.  The endless re-writes of course materials, the constant proposal of new teaching methods and strategies. Within a few years a newer model would be in vogue.  No one seemed to realise that just as plants grow organically so should education systems.  Instead changes are instigated that mean a whole generation of kids emerged less numerate and literate.  Decades later educational systems reap the costs of wholesale changes that actually did harm not good.  The sad truth is when you have a mediocre teacher, after ten years they actually learn to present their stuff better.  They learn techniques that help them improve and the classes benefit as a result.  Today's system requires yearly complete re-structuring both of material and methodology. That mediocre teacher never finds their feet.  They continually chase their tail and are made to feel that what they did before was wrong, inadequate and old fashioned.  Their despair and disintegration haunts school corridors and staff rooms up and down the country. The brilliant teachers suffer even more because instead of doing what they were born to do well, they are shackled and blinkered to perform like show ponies.  A show that will be re choreographed each year with relentless persistence by the powers that be. Even when successful they are a mere shadow of what was really possible.  

So electric cars, closing post offices and our education system: what am I actually saying here?  Well, a little bit of reflection on things usually allows you to see if progress has been achieved or not.  That daily, weekly, monthly or yearly pulse taking lets you feedback whether adjustments are in the right direction or not.  You can then make appropriate small alterations to improve.  Best practice is achieved when that process in built into our systems and ourselves.  Bringing ourselves to account each day would mean we could have a shot at making tomorrow a better one. Meeting as communities and consulting on the problems facing our neighbourhoods would help take the pulse of the wider group.  Making small goals and achieving them would empower local communities to make bigger improvements and to learn from them.  Mistakes will happen but a feeling of ownership helps ease the pain. After all, we all make mistakes each day but usually they do teach us something. In that light even an apparent disaster can reap good results.  Without those shared spaces change is seen as something imposed by others.  Something over which we have no control or say.  Our resentment and helplessness grows.  There is no learning, only an growing awareness of the chaos and disingration that underpins nearly every institution around us.

My father in his eighties had some sound advice.  He used to walk five miles every morning.  If he bought new shoes, he suffered.  If he changed the walking route too drastically he would wreck his knees and be off his feet for weeks.  If he changed his diet substantially his digestion would be affected.  If doctor's changed his medication (probably finding cheaper suppliers) he could feel the difference on his walk.  His advice was  - when you are past a certain age you are like a well oiled machine running in set grooves.  Don't make mad changes.  Don't leave that machine in the garage unused, don't fool about with the fuel for fun and don't tackle unknown mountainous routes.  Everything needs to be in equilibrium and finding that perfect balance means small adjustments to keeping things running smoothly.  Then you are able to notice when life is getting better or you are heading off a cliff!  

So may the changes in your life today be small measured and positive.  May you have time to reflect on their results.  And hopefully all of our tomorrows will be better.