I have often seen the phrase ‘Be the Change’ and even resonated with it, but I am not sure I had really fully understood the depth and breadth of it until just now.

It is a Saturday morning and, as usual, we have been perusing the daily paper (the Daily Telegraph), the only day of the week when we get one. As usual I begin to feel myself get angry and/or depressed at the negative news. Yet again I have to conclude that ‘the powers that be’, by which I mean national and international political and business leaders, just do not get it. None of these so-called leaders that I have seen or heard seem to have any real comprehension as to how deep a mire our species is in. The aware people I speak to would all agree that, whether it be climate change or mental health crisis or on equality issues, humanity really is in a major crisis and we see pretty much nothing coming from the ‘powers that be’ to even show that they have any real comprehension of it, yet alone doing anything to improve things.

So ‘be the change’ has to be seen in this context. In other words, if we leave it up to our leaders, nothing will happen. Things will go from really bad to even worse.

I don’t know about you but that makes me really angry. All these individuals in positions of power, whom we have voted in or who we allow to make huge profits at our expense, who profess to have control of how humanity functions, seem to have totally absolved themselves of any responsibility!

Thus, Be the Change, really means ‘if you want everything worth doing do it yourself’. Now in terms of one’s personal life or often in a normal work situation, I’d sort of understood that, frustrating as it might be. But I suppose I’d grown up believing that, in terms of the big decisions about humanity’s future, ‘the powers that be’ would, eventually, and not without squabbling about it, do what needed to be done for the benefit of us all. Oh, how delusion I have been!

The reality is that we cannot trust our political and business leaders to do what is right for humanity as a whole. Self-interests always have and always will prevail, it seems.

‘Be the change’ is thus about accepting all this, rising above the anger and frustration at it, and getting on and doing the right thing ourselves.

I am glad I finally understand that. Now, hopefully, I can read a newspaper to find out what’s going on in a world (I would not want to be living in denial) without getting totally depressed by it!