Waiting

In the aftermath of the devastation that occurred last Friday morning (see my last post: 'Disaster Day'), I have been thinking a lot about us, as people, as a society, as humanity. I am asking the question, how do things happen? In other words, what does it take for something horrible to happen, what brings us to that point, can we learn to avoid it?

When I look back at the most horrible and horrendous things that have happened in history, and I don't have to go very far back, it always seems amazing to me that things ever got so far.  I wonder how the people could let such things happen, such terrible minds into positions of power and, even then, to continue supporting them.

This has led me to the idea of waiting.  It seems to me that we are all waiting for something, we spend our lives waiting.  Children wait to grow up, teenagers wait to finish school, young adults wait to get a job or a lucky break, people wait to get married and start their 'real' lives, wait for their children to get married, wait for important meetings and events, wait for SOMETHING to happen to them... even wait for death. 

This idea could be applied to what happens in politics and in the world, on a bigger scale.  Instead of standing up for what's right and wrong, people wait to see what happens, to see if what they voted for was right, if the politician was actually telling the truth or not. How often have you heard the phrase, 'we'll just have to wait and see'.

Well, I'm saying NO to waiting any more. There's no time for that!  We only have the now, today, and we have to use it.  By the time we have waited enough to see if all those bad things that we predicted actually happened, it will be far too late.  Maybe, in the case of Brexit, it is already too late.

I know it's incredibly easy to say, much more difficult to actually put into practice. Right now I am playing at a gig which I am waiting to be over. I'm waiting for next week when my summer officially starts, waiting for lots of things to happen.  But I'm trying to change my thinking and I encourage you to as well.  I'm using this time to write this post, I'm enjoying sitting outside in the beautiful sunshine now (not waiting until next week when I am officially allowed to do that). If we can somehow grab this moment now and make things happen now, instead of waiting, I think we, as a society, as a people, have the power to achieve a lot.

In the case of Brexit, I encourage you not to wait to see what the government comes up with for us, but write to your MPs, sign all the petitions and create new ones, read all the fantastic articles that have come out since Friday, join together and get your views out there. 

Here's to no more waiting.