Fed Up With Everything

We wore black. We drove with our headlights on all day. Some of us even went to the funeral and extended our sympathies, or maybe we just went to see what we could see for ourselves. Many of us marched through the streets of Port-of-Spain with the Keith Noel 136 Committee.

We placarded. We sang. We begged the Government to do something about the crime situation. And at the end of the day, what difference does it really make if on a personal level we sit back and do nothing else?

People would ask the question, “what in heavens name can I do?

I’m just one Trini hoping to keep myself and my family safe day by day...”

And so after all the lacouray, because we have no answers and no desire to find any, we return to the safety of our barricaded homes, hoping against hope that the madness will come to an end all on its own, or that the security forces will do something, or that the bandits will eventually run out of fellow bandits to kill. We sit in the relative safety of our living rooms and offices and talk about how much is not being done.

It’s about time we stopped bumping our gums and that we all got up and did something ourselves.

What can you do, you ask? I’m not suggesting that we all go up into Laventille and Marabella and do mediation with the gangs and social work with the poor. Nor am I saying that we put ourselves in peril to stop that purse snatcher that will run past us on Charlotte Street, even though if enough of us tried to get him, there’s no way that he could get away.

There are things, very simple things that each of us can do. If we all try together and we’re consistent, we’ll surely make a difference.

Have you ever taken a chance and run down the shoulder on the highway, or made an illegal drive down the bus route? What about that sweetie paper or gum wrapper that you absently tossed into the drain? Or the stray dog that you kicked?

Or the driver that you cursed because he was more hurry than you and almost ran you over? What about the fact that there’s that co-worker that you don’t say “Good morning” or “Good evening” to because you just don’t like their head?

What about the child that you shouted at today because you just didn’t have patience with them anymore?

We each have one illegal or mindless or foolish thing that we can stop doing, no matter how small.

Having stopped doing something that’s not good, fill the void with something that’s good. It will take nothing for you to buy a $10 box of chinese food one day in the month for that sleeping vagrant that you stepped over on your way down Frederick Street.

It takes nothing out of you to smile and pleasantly say “hello” or “excuse me” when you walk into a store before you launch into, “allyuh have...?”

Stop your car, and let the little old lady trying to cross the road cross.

Put the 37-cents change that you got that you’re going to lose anyway in the FEEL or Salvation Army or TTSPCA or whatever donation tin is next to the cash register. Just like the bad thing, it doesn’t have to be some huge press-worthy effort. Do something, anything, because it’s just nice to be nice.

Together, we can make a world of difference.