Three monkeys
Not too long ago, I came across an article listing fourteen flaws in our national character that we need to overcome in order to progress. All fourteen the author wrote are true and known to most of us. The problem is they are too many and we don’t know where and how to start doing something about them.
My own take calls for shaking off our backs only the three monkeys that are making it difficult for us to move forward faster and with more consistency towards a happy and progressive life. We take care of these critical few and the rest will follow.
First is the victim-complex that blames others for our misfortunes. If we cannot get what we need from parent, spouse, employer, and government official we dump on their laps our failed endeavors. This is the flip side of the culture of dependency that is making our lives move merely sideways but never forward.
We should instead take stock of our talents and opportunities (we all have them no matter how dire the situation) and take responsibility for however we get on with our lives after stopping at some fork in the road for a reality check. This, I am sure, is what the janitor-turned lawyer did. He was smart to realize that blaming gets you nowhere.
Second is obeying rules and regulations only when somebody is watching. This has two sides. One is doing something just to look good to others and the other is doing something utterly stupid (like counter flow in heavy traffic and cause gridlock) when confidently anonymous to the people he/she is hurting with his/her stupidity.
We need instead to do the right thing for its own sake. We must be self-motivated, live by our own convictions and become self-fulfilled individuals.
These two monkeys beget the third which is our exasperating lack of discipline. We throw trash anywhere, we litter streets and when floods come we blame government for not constructing adequate drainage systems. We drive vehicles any which way we want and blame traffic gridlock on the ineffectiveness of traffic enforcers, on LTO allowing people to buy driving licenses, and on government’s lack of personnel with the will and integrity to implement traffic rules.
We blame government for joblessness, for corruption, for criminality, and for the proliferation of drugs but we never blame ourselves for continuing to elect into office corrupt and/or incompetent officials, just because we depend on their patronage for our own survival, progress and success in life.
No patron (parent, employer, spouse, government official) can help us if we have these three monkeys on our backs. We must shake them off, live by our own convictions and be happy and fulfilled taking personal responsibility for our individual and collective lives.