Teach People How to Fish

 

Let's Teach People How to Fish, PLEASE?

Happy Sunday. Hoping you had a good brunch [despite the overcast skies over here this mornin].

Don't get me wrong, in these trying times, it is but apt for us to give fish to the hapless, to the hopeless but let us NOT build a culture of parasitism, wherein we end up heavily dependent to the government, to the philanthropists, to our benefactors. No matter how well intentioned are the government’s billions of additional budget, let us look farther down the road, after the typical family has all but consumed all the food on the table. Do they have to stretch out their necks, waiting for the next government announcement for financial aid? Do they need to scamper and queue all over again to receive the help from the helping hands? Do they end up with the daily TOP PRIORITY of checking and checking social media for the latest announcements from the government for more aid, aid and aid?

Why can’t the powers-that be take a longer and wider view of things. Why can’t they relook at the breadth and depth of the issues at hand arising from this covid pandemic? Why can’t they revisit the whole picture before deep diving into penny pinching initiatives?

Why can’t we look at the prism of life? It’s true we see overcast skies and gloominess as far as our eyeballs can reach out but there are streaks of bright lights in the horizons and who knows, the rainbow might spring out any time now.

Re-tooling. Re-skilling. Reinventing.

Across social media, we here SECOND CHANCES over and over again. But folks, let us NOT tie-up SECOND CHANCES only for relationships [as meddlers and interferers]. Your life itself deserves SECOND CHANCES.

These are initiatives easier said than done but given this long drawn battle with the global pandemic, can’t we take stock of things? When a major business conglomerate folds up, the workforce would rise up in arms, asking how can they feed their families. We commiserate with them because it’s never easy to endure that kind of pressure wherein problems directly impact the mouths you need to feed but do re-tool, re-skill, re-invent yourself. We’ve heard trailblazing acts of late like a former flight attendant who’s now very much dressed on street clothes and cooking up typical street foods right in front her house. We’ve heard a pilot who admittedly will have to reinvent himself now that all the aircrafts have been grounded. There’s just tons and tons of ‘horror stories’ these days, no thanks to this global pandemic.

To quote Phil Wohl, the famous novelist, “Don’t ever feel that your best days are behind you, reinvention is the purest form of hope. Make today your best yet”.

To re-cap, government dole outs are very much appreciated but let us not encourage parasitism across the masses. They don’t deserve to be parasites in the first place but if they seem to exhibit those parasite manifestations these days, don’t look far. If we are part of those helping hands, figure out how we can do our part. p.s. – informally, I’ve shared tidbits of information whenever there are job opportunities in our company wherein we’re VERY STRONGLY encouraging those in ‘dire straits’ to explore. We wanna teach you how to fish, dude.