Don La Fou­cade

There must be a deep hunger in each of us for do­ing what is right. At some point we must take a stand and say "enough is enough" be­cause, if we don't stand for some­thing, we'll fall for any­thing and the fall could be a very hard and de­struc­tive one, not just to us, but to every­one else who will even­tu­al­ly feed off of us. That time is now! Let me quick­ly make it a lit­tle more per­son­al. How long are YOU go­ing to know and see that some­thing is wrong and turn a blind eye? Maybe you're not con­fronta­tion­al by na­ture and would re­al­ly pre­fer to not get in­volved in the 'sour stuff.' As a mat­ter of fact, it prob­a­bly is eas­i­er to point fin­gers at 'them' and think or say "well that's not me or us, so that's their prob­lem." Well, if WE keep say­ing "it's their prob­lem," soon it may be­come "so­ci­ety's prob­lem" and WE should all have a prob­lem with that.

Each of us makes up the so­ci­ety and it should be a con­cern to us all when it's quite ev­i­dent there's a lack of morals and val­ues. My pain (or in­spired bur­den) for writ­ing this par­tic­u­lar ar­ti­cle is that the young peo­ple are be­ing af­fect­ed more than is recog­nised. We all have a part to play by in­di­vid­u­al­ly re­fus­ing to plant the seeds of 'any­thing goes!' No mat­ter our age, some­body is al­ways look­ing at us or up to us and they de­vel­op an ap­petite for what we so greed­i­ly in­dulge in. What we feed, grows (good or bad), and that's a fact we have to face. Here's an­oth­er: Chil­dren learn more by what is seen than by what is said. If for ex­am­ple, they see more and more adults dri­ve on 'the shoul­der', how can we then lat­er on ask them to re­spect the road or even re­spect their peers?

That's just one of the many ex­am­ples that are be­ing fol­lowed. You tell me... wrong or right ex­am­ples? Has your stom­ach turned? What do you have an ap­petite for now? Is 'the meal' be­ing served in so­ci­ety ap­peal­ing? We don't have to look far to know that the 'serv­ing of in­tegri­ty' is rapid­ly los­ing its nour­ish­ing ap­peal. Each of us should be so will­ing to dish out a scrump­tious meal of "this is right" and "this is wrong" and this should nev­er be in­flu­enced or com­pro­mised by cit­ing the num­ber of per­sons par­tic­i­pat­ing in any 'feed­ing fren­zy.' The menu avail­able to all should be one that is healthy and di­gestible.

What is be­ing loud­ly called for are 'Iron chefs' who are will­ing to take a stand for what is right. Peo­ple who will not be afraid to stand and say, 'I will not run, but will do my part in cre­at­ing a well-sea­soned dish for all peo­ple for all sea­sons.' That's some­thing I am will­ing to di­gest! What about you? We are ei­ther part of the prob­lem or part of the so­lu­tion. Fin­ger point­ing does not help, but get­ting our fin­gers in­volved in the prepa­ra­tion of 'so­ci­ety's meal' will. In oth­er words, OUR in­di­vid­ual ac­tions should re­flect what we would all pre­fer to see and taste; a sour dish turned to 'a sweet one!' Just the thought of it makes my mouth wa­ter! I sense an ap­petite com­ing back for what is right!

The im­pact, or nour­ish­ment of this meal, will be seen for gen­er­a­tions to come! With all that we are faced with, we can't con­tin­ue turn­ing a blind eye, be­cause no mat­ter what di­rec­tion we choose to look, there's a hunger quite ev­i­dent! It's a hunger for what is tru­ly right and the younger ones are bawl­ing out (or rather crav­ing deeply) for not just what feels or looks right. If I could bor­row a phrase from the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion's re­cent pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary com­pe­ti­tion, "Do The Right Thing Al­ways." Let this not just be a phrase, but a cre­do that is ex­em­pli­fied by each of us dai­ly. WE MUST take a stand and there­by get oth­ers to un­der­stand, that enough is enough! This ar­ti­cle is cer­tain­ly food for thought for us all as we all haven't lost our ap­petite for what is right! Am I right?