When Admiral William H McRaven addressed a cohort of University of Texas graduates I doubt he realised the video would go viral. But it did. His message was simple but effective.
He told how during his training there was a daily check on how well he had made his bed every morning. Initially he was sceptical - Why would tough guys being trained as warriors need to worry about their bed making?
But the message is sound. If we don't get the small things in life straight, if we don't complete every task over which we have total control then we can never move on to resolving the big issues.
Why does this matter to me?
Because each day I see far too many comments from people living in Wisbech who want others to change their behaviours, but are unwilling to take responsibility for the small things that they themselves could do to improve the Wisbech experience for us all.
First there are the disgusted and outraged who post photos of people they allege have transgressed the rules of decent behaviour, usually in St Peter's gardens. Yesterday it was a woman in a red dress who was the target and the comments quickly became not only extremely unpleasant but also racist. No evidence of her transgression was provided, just a photo and an unsubstantiated allegation. Did the people baying for this woman's expulsion from the UK have any understanding of the British legal system? Apparently not.
They did not require any form of due process, clearly believing that trial by Facebook was perfectly OK.
For all I know they may know who this woman is, and the posting of her picture may have been a malicious act against her. If they don't have an intimate knowledge of her then I cannot see how they can possibly request that she is made to "Go back home." A person's nationality cannot be determined merely by looking at them, nor by listening to them. It may be possible to detect ethnicity if one has linguistic training that is sufficient to identify an accent, but few of us do. But ethnicity is very different to nationality.
Last week I was on holiday with my brother who currently holds dual nationality, but intends to relinquish his British nationality as he has lived in Australia for decades and now feels a total commitment to that nation. If you were to meet him it would seem that he was British.
Posting a photo of a person perceived to be a foreigner was accepted by many of the people who posted vile comments, but another post relating to a person photographed littering drew a very different comment. The official who photographed the miscreant was accused of sneakily loitering around with a camera in order to gain the evidence needed. The litter lout then posted a whining complaint because he had been issued with a fixed penalty notice. In the weaseling complaint this person claimed that he would have picked his cigarette butt up if only he had been given enough time, but there was an added difficulty that the wind had blown it some distance from him, he had a sick child in his car... and so it went on. Another person complained that they found it too difficult to pick up their rubbish because they had difficulty bending over.
What these moaning people fail to understand is that their rubbish is no different to everyone else's. Rubbish tossed onto the pavement, car park or street is rubbish. Rubbish thrown by British people is no more acceptable or attractive than that thrown by a migrant or tourist.
There were a few amusing exchanges with the mayor, who stated that he did not know if a fixed penalty notice was legal when issued within the Asda car park. Nobody cared whether the poor man knew the facts or not, they just kept asking him to comment. I no longer care what allowance the mayor gets for his mayoral duties, because his good grace in dealing with such stupidity meant he's earned it.
Personally I think that if Asda car park is currently a zone within which rubbish can be dropped without penalty the council should seek out a remedy to alter the arrangement. Rubbish dropped in a car park will not stay in that car park, and the wind blowing rubbish out into the public space does not constitute an act of of God. I live close to a shop and have a front garden full of cigarette wrappers, crisp bags and scratch cards every morning. Not nice.
We have to accept that there is much that we cannot control as we go about the business of daily living, but we can control what we post on Facebook, and we can control where we dispose of our rubbish. One of the most valuable lessons we can teach our children is self-discipline, and another is reacting to criticism with genuine self appraisal. Nobody can go through life without making any mistakes and it is through the lessons we learn from those mistakes that we improve.
Let's all make our beds to the best of our ability, we can't all be warriors but we can all do everything possible to make the world a cleaner and kinder space for everyone.
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