Good in a Crisis...

There are situations that life throws you, were you have to wonder whether you are good in a crisis or not. Having recently given charge of sorting out a family crisis, even though I was worried beyond belief, I was able to take charge, inform and make sure everything moved and was being handled. The emotional and psychological stress in these kind of situation is off the Richtor scale. You not only have to keep your cool, but make sure everyone's else's cool is managed as well.

This personal drama made me think of the drama in the world we live in today. It amazes me the power of human endeavour whether it be on the scale of a major human disaster on a scale that takes human life and truly makes us realise the power of mother nature, or when a young boy goes missing and his family and friends work together to find him. If you erase the dividing lines of global politics, and economy, and purely look at the human ability to pool together love, kindness and generousity, there are so many things we are capable of achieving from one human life for another.

If you look at human beings and our range of emotion - from love, and passion to sadness, or anger, we have the ability to harness our emotions for the betterment or detriment of humanity. Corruption, callousness, selfishness, bureaucracy, and our propensity for war are some of the factors that make people like me doubt whether the human race will survive. I may sound like a massive hippie but "if we only put down our guns and gave each other a hug".

According to the Stolkholm International Peace Research Institute, "World military expenditure is estimated to have been $1531 billion in 2009—an increase of 6 per cent over 2008 and of 49 per cent since 2000. This corresponded to 2.7 per cent of world gross domestic product (GDP) and $224 for each person in the world". If we could slow down our military expenditure, and invest that into bettering the human condition - to alleviate poverty, educate citizens of the world, and creating a world that can sustain our gluttonous and consumer-ridden lifestyle, we can override all the bad in this world.

I am an optimist at heart, and I hope that in my lifetime, I get to see nationality, become humanity; forgiveness; acceptance of difference; deprivation and poverty become happiness and enrichment.