This morning at some unearthly hour on the train I was tweeting about Charles Dickens being that it is the 200th Anniversary of his birth today. Little would I realise when doing that how bad today actually would turn out to be in terms of a Dickinseque scenario.
Dickens was a great reformer. He hated what he saw around him in Victorian Britain. Poverty, disease and destitution could not be right in his mind. He wrote books that highlighted all of those things and yet as I look around me in Elizabethan Britain I see in many ways things have not changed and I for one am worried for my children.
Sure we now have sanitation, electricity, clean streets, education, health care and social care but we have an attitude just as small minded as many of those in the Victorian world. I consider myself lucky for those who I interact with through social networking are generally people who I would enjoy having a cup of afternoon tea with or a pint down the pub and these are people who I know in a virtual world. Those I know in the real world especially my so called peer group would stab me in the back and smile into my face as I would look on going et tu Brutus.
Many years ago I was a young man aggressively seeking promotion in a dog eat dog world of the 1980's. Then as many of you will know I suffered a Saul on the Road to Damascus moment when I nearly died in not one but two car crashes a short time apart. Since then, and I don't speak about it often, my body has gradually started to capitulate to the ravages of time hastened by the damage sustained in the crashes. However the enlightenment, as you might put it, allowed me to take a step back and look at the important things in life.
My wife at the time was horrified that I was no longer bringing in the money that kept her in the manner to which she believed she deserved and fairly soon my marriage was on the rocks, something that I take my share of responsibility for. It was a loveless marriage however I had wonderful children who I doted upon. And I wanted them to be able to look up to me in years to come and say hey dad you did good you know. So I changed my outlook on life.
Unfortunately though I look around today in workplace and I still see that dog eat dog attitude. It is still all about me rather than together we can be better. Have we learned anything I ask myself? Politicians are corrupt, sports leaders are embroiled in so many scandals, business leaders seek to make the pot bigger for themselves and smaller for others and religious leaders are contemptible. And the great reformists? Well they seem to have disappeared all together. So what would Dickens have thought of it all? I dread to think.
So when the night draws in and you climb into your bed ask yourself this before you go to sleep. Have I helped someone else today. Have I brought about some kind of positive change in my theatre of influence. Have I made a difference to someone today?
If the answer is yes then may you sleep in peace and enjoy the rest that you deserve. If the answer is no then make sure you do something about it before it is too late, don't procrastinate, don't say manjana. Do it, and do it now.
All it takes for evil to succeed is for one good man not to stand up.
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