My moral compass

What gives you direction in life?

I’ve always tried to be kind, I hope I care for people. I’ve decided to always try and be pleasant with people if I can. I still react to bad behaviour and think it should be dealt with, but we should have more consideration.

I sat in the pharmacy today waiting for some medication. The shop has had a new computer system and they are still trying to get up to speed with it. The shop was very busy and there were people queuing all the time I was there. Some people were fine, others demanding, and some complained. One woman behind the counter was trying to deal with all of them. She remained patient and helpful despite the pressure. When she came over to get something off the shelf near where I was sitting I thanked her and said I appreciated their help. I told her how I had noticed how hard they were working. She said some people think they are doing nothing. She was pleased that I had thanked her.

It costs nothing to be polite, and a few kind  words can go a long way to making people feel better.

I hope they think I’m kind

Tell us one thing you hope people say about you.

It says it all “# be kind”.

Why not? Why be horrible, unkind, cruel? To make life better for yourself by harming others? Too many dictators and politicians seem to think this way. Often they say populist things to the public, while making decisions that often go against their rhetoric. Looking to increase their power. Then again a lot CEOs pay themselves massive amounts above the lowest paid workers. 80 men earn more put together than half the world’s population, that’s about 4,000,000,000 (4 billion) people!

Kindness can be financial, or verbal, it might just be a gentle hug. It might be not enforcing unfair rules and laws that would be detrimental to different races, faiths, or sexualities. Often conflict is about us and them. Being unkind or treating people as ‘other’ or not ‘one of us’ is not what I support.

Basically it simply comes down to thinking about people, thinking what they need, and trying to help if you can, even if it’s only a few kind words. Be considerate, be kind.

A lot of people

If you had a million dollars to give away, who would you give it to?

I’ve actually thought this through. I would give some to family and friends, it turns out you can gift someone £3000 without having to pay tax. But I would give more than that and gladly pay it. Then I would think of acquaintances to help. I would try and share a reasonable amount. Having done that I would buy a small house and garden, a bit bigger than mine now, but not huge. Enough to neatly fit paintings and books with a warm studio with plenty of light to paint and draw in. A natural garden with pond. It would not be too far away from family and friends. Obviously the cats come along too.

I would have to ensure I could pay all my bills each year.

Finally I would try and donate to charity… I would have to support local as well as national charities.

Feed the kids!

We are in a pandemic and many people in my country (England) are struggling to survive on lower incomes and less hours at work, despite being one of the richest countries in the world.

The situation is only made worse by our government refusing to help pay for free school meals during this coming week. They say they have given 63 million pounds to local councils to help pay for food. Conveniently, they don’t mention that they have been cutting benefits to people over the last ten years, and councils have shrunk by about 75%.

A footballer, Marcus Rashford, has raised the issue and many local businesses and food outlets are trying to help. This led one of the MPs to say it was good to see businesses had bounced back so much that they could now afford to help out!

I’m not saying which party are doing this. I just think that there needs to be more compassion in the world. Not just here but everywhere. We are in a bad situation. Don’t deliberately make it worse!

Have you seen this?

DSC_2755

I’ve had this on a door for years, it’s getting sunburned and bleached, but it’s still there. A friend did the illustration and hand lettering for it. I’ve always thought it was an interesting piece of writing. I think I heard that it was not well thought of. That it was too middle class. But I like it. It makes me feel that people do care about each other.

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Why are there foodbanks?

sketch-1577233161543.jpgThis might be someone’s meal today, tonight, next week. They may be on a low income, on benefits or state handouts. They might be in a refugee camp trying to flee from famine or oppression.

Coming closer to home, in a land that is the sixth richest in the World and where many more billionaires live than ever before, the number of Foodbanks here over the last few years have soared, from a handful ten years ago to more of them than McDonald’s outlets now! There are around two THOUSAND Foodbanks in this country now. Let that sink in. And people using them are only allowed two or three referrals in a six month period. That referral gives them emergency food for three or four days. They are used when someones benefit has been cancelled or delayed. I know about them because I used to refer people into them. I had to jump through hoops to get a referral for them. Often I came up against the arguments about whether they were deserving enough. I would be talking to a decision maker who would criticise the person’s ability to budget a paltry amount of money that the decision maker could not possibly have lived on themselves.

My question again is why are there Foodbanks? Why are the poorest in society forgotten? Why do the rich think it’s OK to look down on the poor? Remember that it is only by luck that we are born into the lives we have.