Foreign Secretary William Hague has said there is only one answer to Britain’s economic woes – hard work.
Is that what life is really about… are we really here just to work? I recently watched a video by the American Poet Robert Bly, wherein he highlighted the breakdown in family life since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution when fathers had to leave the home every day, work long hours for not much money, came home hungry and cranky, and gradually became disconnected from his family due to long hours working in factories or down coalmines.
Today, of course, our working lives are quite different and there have been many improvements in working conditions, minimum wages etc., however, are we really designed to just work all our lives? Is that the true meaning of life?
If so, then we are in deep doodoo!!
The financial collapse that we are experiencing right now is a testament to the shift that is taking place in the human psyche and unless we stop and consider our actions such as the somewhat STUPID comment by William Hague in today’s Telegraph, can we survive as a species at all… or have we simply become slaves to the financial system? Aren’t most of us working ‘just to pay our bills’? How many people in this country or indeed around the world today feel that we are simply existing, but not really living?
I’m not against hard work! In fact, I know few people who have worked as hard as I have over the past 46 years. My first job, at the age of 13, was in the Broomknoll Cafe in Airdrie where I worked a Saturday job from 8am until 6pm for the princely sum of 10 shillings (or 50 pence in today’s money). Whilst studying at a local commercial college at the age of 16, I worked Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings for 15/- (that’s 5 bob a night) and my ‘bonus’ was a fish supper to take home to the family every night (ie the leftovers)!
Today, I’m known for my meteoric rise in the property investment field, only to have an equally meteoric nosedive into bankruptcy after a certain High Street bank reneged on a multi-million pound property deal after exerting some very strenuous selling techniques to get the deal in the first place!! This same bank, whilst announcing record PROFITS, has also recently announced the loss of 1400 jobs south of Hadrian’s Wall… why? Because their image in England is not so popular any more. I wonder why? Of course, this particular bank is really owned by NAB in Australia, so one has to wonder why local businesses don’t simply stay LOCAL!!
‘Great Britain’ was once known for it’s innovation, it’s engineering prowess, it’s national health service, it’s entrepreneurial spirit. Where did that go? Now we’re being accused of not working hard enough?
I think we’ve all been HOODWINKED into thinking we were living in a free country. It seems to be a free-for-all who wish to emigrate here, but the reality is that we are enslaved to a system that is run by an elite group of bankers and whose only motive is PROFIT!
We’ve watched for years as our manufacturing and export industries have dwindled. We’ve witnessed the emigration of some of our brightest minds to the US or other countries where their skills have been exploited in return for a higher standard of living.
So, perhaps that’s what Mr Hague means when he tells us to get on a plane and go overseas, export overseas, study overseas. After all, that’s what China and India are doing isn’t it? Sending their brightest students to these shores to study, to copy and eventually to return to their own lands and EXPORT to UK!!
There’s no lack of strong work ethic in this country… but there is a serious lack of strong leadership.
