Latest News• Add My News • Search Old News Gippsland › Latest news › Howard S. EmanuelChange Our Hearts, Change Our Minds (Howard S. Emanuel)As we the Australian people continue to search for that ever elusive social model, that societal construct that will create opportunity and a sense of worth for all members....
Change Our Hearts, Change Our Minds By Howard S. Emanuel 19 June 2007 As we the Australian people continue to search for that ever elusive social model, that societal construct that will create opportunity and a sense of worth for all members, it is worth I think pondering for a moment just what are the bulwarks and barriers that keep us from this goal. This goal, that deep down inside of all of us I believe we wish to achieve. Never mind the constant talk we hear regarding the "ever-widening" gap between the "haves and have-nots", the goal of a peaceful and fulfilling journey through life exists within all of us. It is undeniably true that such a gap not only exits in Australia but is in fact growing as each day passes, but there is little point in endlessly commentating on the situation and doing little else. Public policy which will effect a change within the social balance in Australia must become a tool that is driven by what is right and just, not what is ideologically pure and populist. We are fast reaching a point in our history in this country where the divisions we continue to fuel and stimulate will cause all of us, that is each and every one of us regardless of our station, much harm. One only need look to modern day America and England to see what an insidious thing, class and social division is. It is pointless and in one sense gutless for the Australian people who voted the Howard government into office at the 2004 federal election to continue to point the finger at the government's industrial relations legislative changes as a major culprit of the increasing divide. Social division has been rampart in this nation since white settlement, when the English brought their own social model with them. There has not been an accomplished nor determined long-term effort in this country since that time to break down those divisions and construct a uniquely Australian society, one where we all can work toward our potential and individual fulfilment; to this point in time that effort has just not existed. So it is a nonsense to blame something as recent as changes to workplace relations for a problem that is in this country over 200 years old. We seem to have to my mind become a nation of people, that is all of us out there in our communities, that are all too willing to shed our own individual responsibility for the shape of the society in which we live and target our politicians, public servants and business leaders for the decay and decline which we now witness. The mere thought that such an approach has any credibility is absurd and only furthers to demean us a nation of peoples who incidentally seem transfixed by the notion that we are still "the clever country" that we are somehow better than the rest of the world at providing opportunity and a dignified life for all our citizens. It is palpably time for a reality check for all of us, even for those who we like to say are "doing well". For deep down inside even in these folk there is an ever increasingly obvious discontent and shallowness to their being perhaps born of the realisation that material wealth is all very well, but it cannot quarantine and buttress us against that thing that exists within all of us, the need to be loved by those around us and equally the need to care for each other. This must surely be the very basis of human existence. Never mind the outward displays of stoicism and contentment that are by the way as fragile and transparent as glass, people in this country are hurting either through the depravations they experience due to poverty and lack of any real opportunity for emancipation, or in the case of the middle and comfortable classes a nagging feeling that there must be some reason why their human relationships are becoming increasingly frail and fraught with difficulty. A nagging feeling that no matter what amount of goods they procure, no matter what embellishments they shower their lives with, they still never seem to be fulfilled. Why when they live in a land of such obvious plenty are they becoming more and more stressed, more and more prone to anxiety and depression and numerous other mental health conditions. The levels of stress and anger, fear and emptiness are palpable in the community today. One only has to walk down the street in any town, in any community and they can feel the angst, feel the anger. Try talking to a total stranger and the response may well be quite disconcerting, people it seems are wary of a motive just because someone they don't know has spoken to them. But could it be that the person making the approach is in need of solace of some kind, that indeed they are reaching out to this stranger because they need comforting, pacifying, reassuring in some way. They need to glean the strength from somewhere so as they can manage to carry on their own personal struggle. And yet more often than not we turn them away, not because we are dreadful or even evil people but because we have become wary. God forbid we say to ourselves, they may even ask me for financial support or something like that, they may even desire to enter my own personal fortress and seize some of my manifest wares. Never mind that many of us have so much we don't know what to do with it all, but no matter we are totally protective of this bounty all the same. But in all this there is a bright light, there is indeed a candescence that can shine on the fate of those less fortunate than ourselves and you know what? We don't have to give them a thing, that's right not a smidgin, nary a morsel of our private wealth. How can this be you ask, "aren�t those who struggle always asking us for something". "I mean if they are not working they want income support, if they are working they want more pay, for goodness sake". Well the way we can help these folk the most, the most effective way in which we can assist and support them, is to give them the tools to help themselves. And it is those who travel well through life, those that enjoy a good education and experience robust health and those that come from "good" families and often hold positions of influence and power in the community that have a role to play in supporting the less fortunate. Because through these manifest means they can have a broad influence on those around them. But first they have to get themselves sorted out. We need to change the way we feel about those that occupy a lower social strata than ourselves, (and lets not have any of that nonsense about denying that such strata's exist in Australia, they exist, that is a given) we need to embrace them as our fellows on the same daunting journey as ourselves. We need to make them feel good about themselves so they can then achieve at their highest level and by these efforts, lift us all. I put to all of us out there that we have lost a respect and regard for those who live differently than ourselves, those who toil and labour, those who have a different income level than ourselves, those that do not domicile within the better suburbs. I mean that is the main measure of where we sit on the social scale is it not, what class we belong to? Our income level, our assets and our financial status says it all about us supposedly. Pretty sad but true all the same and this attitude seems to becoming more trenchant and increasingly rigid in the community as each generation passes. Clearly something needs to be done before we alienate ourselves totally from those around us. So if we can change the way we view those around us who may be a little different from us to a more positive viewpoint, we can by this action change them. Because we empower them to feel better about themselves, we no longer look down on them, we no longer demean them, we no longer disenfranchise them from success. To effectively achieve this lofty goal, we do not need to approach this effort by way of our mind, we need to establish a compassionate view of the needs of others; that is in short, we need to let our hearts guide us in our thinking. We need to change our hearts to a point where we allow them to speak to us, where we no longer refuse to feel the pulses of honesty that spring forth and not continue to suppress these thoughts and feelings. We need to change our hearts so we listen to them. When we let our hearts guide us we will send the right message to those around us who are struggling and they will hear in the clearest form what we say. This then will resonate so deeply within them that they will begin to believe in themselves and what follows can be enormous. Their minds will change and they will begin to believe that they are capable of many things their social order has told then they are not. I mean they can begin to take leadership roles in the community, they can begin to move into management and higher positions in the organisation in which they work, they can seek public office, they can literally become the person who we all like to think we are. So you see if we change our hearts and foster a more compassionate view of those below us, they will in turn change their minds to a more productive state and begin to contribute more to society instead of being a suppressed and morbid strata that struggles to be heard, a strata that never reaches potential, a strata that never enjoys equality with the rest of us. Simple chemistry really. Change our Hearts, Change our Minds. Go to it folks, instead of belittling the uneducated, making jokes about the lower income earners give them the tools to reach a better standard of living and not just in financial terms. Give them the chance to better reach their full potential so as they can then live in the knowledge that they are free of the burden of under achievement, that nagging and terrible doubt that they have much to offer and yet in many it stays locked in the closet all their lives. And we truly wonder why we have so much stress and trauma in the society. Wouldn't you be aggrieved, wouldn't you feel damned if you were never given the opportunity to reach your potential and through this operate in all that society has to offer? I guess the major challenge in all this is that it is we who have positions of influence and authority in the community that must open our exclusive realms to others. It is we who must find the courage to allow those who currently live below us to come up and sit by our side and enjoy the same view, the same standard of living that we do. The challenge will be whether we are willing to share what we have or are we frightened that if we empower those around us their will be less for us, because if we distribute more evenly that is the obvious outcome. But even more frightening than this is the feeling that perhaps if we let the riff-raff into the corridors of power and influence, perhaps it could be that there will be some bright ones among them who could well be more capable than ourselves, who could perish the thought, end up exposing out chronic weakness, our ordinary efforts to this point. Then where would we be, then how do we continue to ask for privilege and position when we cannot demonstrate the qualities that are needed. God forbid. It could well be that we would have a better society than we do at present because those who have lived a life that occupies many experiences, those whom have seen a broad range of life's trials and tribulations, those whom have struggled, have a better understanding of the needs of the people and a better understanding of broad human behaviour. So who is going to lead on this issue, who among those that are comfortable are going to change their hearts so as they can then by their own actions change the minds of those who struggle. Who will it be that will make the first move and step outside their own narrow and precious circle and embrace those they do not know, those even though they have no acquaintance with, they have very set and narrow opinions of. Do we just continue on and gather as much as we can on the journey, play hard and indulge to our full capacity, or do we understand that social division particularly in a society of plenty such as Australia will inevitably become a destructive force among us. That it will inevitably entangle all of us in its vulgar outpourings to the point where none of us will be free of its grasp. Do we give and rejoice in the life we create or do we continue to defend the citadel, the fortress. Well no matter what battlements we put in place, what bulwarks we construct; if we continue to suppress those around us, if we continue to deny to them what is rightfully theirs, we will be breached and we will suffer, perhaps manifestly so. Change our Hearts Change our Minds. Try it, there's plenty to practice on. Thank you. Regards, Howard S. Emanuel
Source: http://gippsland.com/ Published by: howard-emanuel@hotmail.com
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