FORGET THE RESOLUTIONS

Instead of making the traditional New Year’s promises that are never kept, and worse not meant to be kept it would be nice if people should recognise that they have the power to make the New Year a better one than the Old by simply doing the commonplace things required of them. For example, people carp about the number of road accidents for 2003, all too many of them fatal, yet tell themselves that they drive better when they have in one or two alcoholic drinks.  They exceed speed limits, drive without due care and attention, while sometimes carrying on conversations on their cellular phones, boasting that they can handle the steering wheel just as well with one hand as with two. Or drive a vehicle with defective brakes yet seek to convince their passengers that in an emergency they can gear down and bring the car to a stop in time. In turn, there are passengers who refrain from cautioning motorists on the way they are driving, and from offering, should they have valid driving permits, to drive the vehicles of friends who have clearly consumed too much alcohol.

Police officers are required to protect and serve, and by their presence to deter would be bandits. And when crimes are committed to employ what they learned at the Police Training College, and through experience and the upgrade of their efficiency, to solve crimes. No one expects them to be themselves involved in crime, as happened recently when 53 cases of rum were stolen from the Police Canteen! Many parents use obscene expressions or fight in front of their children, bring home stolen goods and casually speak of it or tell their children to lie and say they are not at home, when an unwanted guest or the bill collector drops in. And yet wonder that their children are becoming or have become wayward. Inconsiderate squatters all too often slash and burn hillsides to build houses and to plant crops or to add rooms to their homes.

The net result is soil erosion which can trigger troublesome landslides during heavy rainfall, because there is no vegetation either for the rainwater to be readily absorbed or to slow the water as it moves down the slope. The rushing water, accompanied by stones and dirt and sometimes uprooted trees, can cause massive problems for persons living at the bottom of the hill. And what of dumping quarried material, old mattresses and cars as well as garbage into the country’s water courses, thereby raising the level of river beds and/or relatively deep canals, and during the rainy season flooding as we see year after year in North, Central and South Trinidad. These thoughtless actions annually cost millions of dollars in losses in food crops, damaged homes, furniture and electrical appliances, in addition to the posing of a health threat.

For instance, many of us exercise only to be trim for the pre-Carnival fetes and the grand occasion itself, Carnival. Once Carnival has come and gone they return to careless eating habits and exercise-free lives, that is until the following January. In each case, however, the individuals can make the difference, whether through being above reproof Police officers; positive parents providing their children with positive examples, careful and concerned drivers and/or concerned passengers. Or by sparing a thought for others by refraining from slashing and burning hillsides as well as ceasing illegal dumping in our water courses. And none of them needs to be fashioned as a New Year’s promise lightly made and just as lightly broken even before you can say “Jack Robinson”. What is needed is the determination to do the best we can in our individual lives.