It’s My Birthday. I Am Old. I Still Learn.

Today I am 63 years old. These days, and considering advances in medicine, not hugely old, but enough.

And okay, I have developed a few ‘habits’ that could do with modification, and the body is not what it was, which was never that much anyway, but …….

I am still capable of learning. I am still open to new, varied, diverse and original ideas.

I can still adapt. I can still grow.I can still appreciate and accept change.

And, trust me, I am nothing special.

So, if I am capable of accepting the option of alternative approaches, why in the name of all that is human are our glorious leaders completely incapable of responding to a situation in any other way than the same old cycle.

The waste of time, of effort, of resources, and mostly lives. Real people, innocent people. Fodder for their lack of imagination.

With a world facing so many desperate and dire circumstances, with suffering expanding exponentially across the globe, can no-one in power see that the circle doesn’t need to be completed.

There is always another option, even at first it is only to consider, to think, to check, to test. Not just react, not just allow the knee jerk to be the standard.

It fills my heart and lifts my soul to see the response from students in the USA to the horror of mass shootings in schools.

But it is sad when the first people to defend victims are victims themselves.

That should be the role of those in power, but it seems that the old adage still applies. Power does corrupt, and the retention of power is more important than an innocent life.

I can learn, and I can change.

Time you did too, or step aside and let the victims take the power.