More than a few people are not happy with how their lives are developing. Yet they seem to wait for some miracle to happen. Often they are the same people who want changes in society. But do we really want society to change? If so, why do we watch football or Netflix instead of join a political party, do our best to get elected in the (local) counsil and change things from within?
We want things to change in our neighbourhood. Yet we don't want to join the local residents' committee. Complainers claim to have 'no time' but that's a weird statement, coming from a group of people of who a substantial number is unhappy because they are unemployed.
People who say they want change but fail to perform any action to make that change happen, remind me of 'the twelfth player' in football (which Americans call soccer): they shout they know everything better than the actual coach or players but none of them is willing to train for hours and years on end so they can one day join the team and actually help them win. Sure, moral support is important so please keep on signing and spreading online petitions against social injustices
If you want something to change you'd first have to change your behaviour. Being 'old' is no excuse. A guy in my neighbourhood wrote his last column a month before he died. Two weeks before he died he was still handing out leaflets on the street. Still fighting for better and more affordable housing, never giving up the struggle he joined in the sixties. He passed at age 98.
Even 'Yeah, but I'm handicapped and reliant on my wheelchair' is no excuse. A 68 years old lady in my neighbourhood is chairwoman of an environmentalists group and she oversees the work at a large communal garden. You can find her almost every week at the local counsil, taking her minimum of five minutes of speaking time to speak on behalf of some marginal group she is concerned about. And goes to the gym a few times a week, early in the morning 'because I need to stay fit although I suffer from muscle atrophy.'
She takes this notion of 'become part of a team and actually do something about a bad situation' very seriously as she is part of maybe a dozen different 'teams' of people who want to change society/the world for the better.
I myself am part of three of such 'teams'. Are you part of any 'teams' tham aim to improve the world around you? If not: what's your excuse? Are you perhaps 'too busy' shouting at the newsanchor that someone should do someting? Just remember you yourself could be that someone.
Becoming part of the team our chances of changing the outcome of the game increase drastically compared to staying put on the couch and shouting at the TV screen that others should perform better.
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