Only Speak if you can add Positive Value to Silence

In honor of International Woman's day and 2013 being the year of my big 30++++*  birthday ( yes I am one of those women) and my 15 year wedding anniversary, I decided it was time you hear what I have to say. Here goes.....my first blog (nervous excited for your feedback) ;-) And I did send this article to the local paper hoping they will pick it up as a column but ......I scare people a lot so this might be the only sure way to read it!

By no means am I a professional writer. I am nowhere close to Ira Mathur or Sunity Maharaj, our local superstars in this field. However, that being said, I can humbly say I have something to say which is the byline of this series of four articles I will write over the next few weeks offering solutions. So here goes!

I am, like many of you, suffocating and choking on the tirades of negativity in Trinidad and Tobago as a whole. I actually think we, citizens, have systematically decided to keep ourselves spinning in a tornado of defeat and destruction so we simply are unable to find calm within ourselves to think and act.

Who really can start their day hoping to dance in a downpour of positivity after reading and listening to the hole we have dug ourselves into first thing every morning? There is simply no platform to share, consistently and abundantly, good inspiring stories which any progressive country can tell you is the key to move its people and country forward. Just pick up the Gulf News daily paper to understand how happy stories can make you feel good….even healthy. Better yet think about the last time you tore out anything from the local paper saving it thinking what a great idea or how can I help this person I just read about realize their dreams or I have to share this story or I have to look into this further?

So what is the solution? Well first I had to test my theory about there being mainly negativity around us. I chose the daily papers as my medium. I took a few local papers into one of my classrooms and I asked my students (ages 8-12) to find happy positive words in the first five pages of each paper. A few students happened to find one word “Fabulous” in an advertisement on page 4 of one paper.  And that was it! I did this over one month and everyday was the same except for the recent story on the young man from Hilo which made the first few pages of all the papers. He is now forgotten of course when in fact he should probably be paid by TDC and all the major cell-phone companies branding fees as a “true” TnT Ambassador in their ads versus the “infamous” ones they throw money at who do not represent the values we want to install in our country and more importantly our youths.

It is a fact that when you pour buckets of negative thoughts into your minds, your thoughts are infected subconsciously. Your thoughts become your words which in turn become your actions. And we wonder why so many of us are angry, defeated and plain vex by 9am!

Now real quick, think about the few happy positive people you know and go to their Facebook wall. You will notice there is a plethora of positive quotes, happy photos, inspiring stories etc. Did a light bulb just go off? Digest now the mindsets we set each day for our population. What about the mindsets we are passing on to our children daily?

So what is my solution? I will start first with Government and offer the following idea:

First, it should be inscribed somewhere in parliament front and center in large bold letters the following words “ONLY SPEAK UP IF YOU CAN ADD POSITIVE VALUE TO SILENCE”. Yes, I too have my suspicion that we might hear only crickets for days or weeks in Parliament after this becomes the modus operandi but at least we might get some Ministers/ Senators thinking for the first time ever or just maybe many of them might quit after truly hearing their own conscience.

 

Second, I will do some decorating in Parliament and install a huge mirror at the entry into Parliament chambers with a camera above it that attaches to a huge screen outdoors that the public can watch. At this entry mirror, each Minister/Senator as he or she enters must stop and take this simple oath weekly for the citizens to not only see but also as a reminder to himself or herself of why he or she is there. The oath is as follows:  “I understand my role as a Minister /Senator is not about me or for my personal gain, I am here only to serve my country and its citizens. I have a duty to leave my country more abundant and better than I found it for the nation’s children”. The reason for this is that by simple repetition it becomes ingrained in the minds of every Minister/Senator their job description and with time they will believe it and act on it. It is a form of brain washing for a good result but desperate times require ‘back to basics’ creativity.

Third, I think we should require that all Minister/Senators be given Twitter training i.e. so they learn the gift of getting to the point with the fewest words possible.  I would also add in here that each sentence they speak out loud in Chambers or to the public must contain a positive adjective in it. I am not joking here. We sadly have reached the stage where we have to treat our Ministers/Senators like school children and teach them how to be polite and positive in the way they speak with each other and to us. I am sure I am not the only one who has noticed that they  all seem to have the contagious virus of “ignorant senseless word usage” which has resulted in “unexplainable irrational actions.” 

Here is my solution for media houses:

I would  encourage and reward all newspapers  to ensure that the  first five pages of their paper is at least 50% filled with inspiring encouraging news, stories and ideas that includes a positive inspiring cover image. And if the staff writers cannot think it up themselves, I encourage the media houses to create alliances with other foreign papers and borrow their stories until we are ready.  Some type of similar methodology would all be applied to radio except for Marsha Miranda’s show which rocks. What this does is at first glance is uplift our state of mind and spirits. It allows us the choice as readers to stop reading after page 5 since we know that will be the drama section and just like the movies we can choose to not show up in those pages.

And finally the solution for our corporates:

I would pass some zoning laws for all those wretched billboards alongside the roads requiring all advertising to contain educational positive inspiring messages. A media council will be set up and all street billboard ads will have to pass the council’s approval. Make no mistake 75% of those sitting on that council will be University, secondary school and high school students and the other 25% of the members cannot be from the “family tree” of the current Government in power whoever that may be.  So an example for companies selling alcohol is that they will be permitted to do billboards on road safety and no drinking and driving. Food companies can do educational ads on healthy eating, exercise. Energy companies can do green and environmental campaigns etc.  You don’t have to do a hard sell to build a brand and develop customer loyalty!

 

And yes I know, you are all thinking my solutions are simplistic and a bit off the wall but I know for a fact after having spent thousands of hours with many good decent Trinbagonians volunteering to grow leaders in this country for the last two years, that with a few tablespoons of encouragement, positivity, inspiration and hope we can change mindsets. When we change mindsets, we are changing the way people “see” themselves and their role in society which causes them to act differently. Change in action will alter the course of our country’s future.

And make no mistake, the track we are on is transporting our nation’s children into a dark tunnel where the only light is that of an incoming train.  So let us make the effort to speak out loud to the Universe words that add a positive value to silence and even though we might not enjoy the fruits of those words, our children will and I cannot think of a better investment and legacy of our limited time here.  Can you?