Cracked Windows

Sometimes I think about things for hours on end, not knowing quite how to express it myself, and all of a sudden, it comes to me. So here it is, something that's been washing round my mind (what's left of it anyways) the past week in ETI.

I believe everyone has an inbuilt barometer, one that tells them when something is "screwed-up" and when it is not. Everyone knows it, and nobody wants to go through life doing things which they themselves perceive as screwed-up. And yet, evidently so many people do. Why? It's when external factors are introduced, things that cloud their judgement, over-ride the innate desire to do good. It's the mindset "everyone does it, so if I don't I'll lose out". It's because when the window is already cracked, when imperfections and flaws are present, that they decide, and rationalize, and decide that there's no point preserving something already messed up, so they might as well mess it up more for their own convenience. And I care. I think it's debasing, when we live our lives this way, when we could be and are so much more. And so, despite being the procrastinator that I am, I want to be the one who mends the window, and removes the obstacles preventing us from exercising our better judgement, providing something around which things can crystallize and begin to grow.

A little over-ambitious perhaps? And a short call earlier just illuminated me as to how myopic I can be, to miss out the cracks growing right under my nose. I still have to try, nonetheless.

A question, though: If people really do want to do good, will anything be able to prevent them from doing so? Is aiming to make it less tough for others to make a "right" decision really the right way to go about things?

To the former, I'd really rather not say. As to the latter, I believe that these types of things need to grow and develop incrementally. The first time is tough, the second time isn't easier, nor are the subsequent times, yet as you go along, a habit is developed, and soon it'll become second nature.

People can be influence by the most inconsequential of things. A teacher of mine (I don't even remember who anymore!) shared with a bunch of us about something he observed in some other country at a fast food outlet. Having consumed their meals, customers would neatly fold up their burger wrappers before clearing their trays at the bins. And ever since hearing that, that's exactly what I've been doing. Fold the wrapper into halves, quarters then eighths before clearing my tray; clearing up after myself. A small thing, true, but something that matters to me :)

Do I make sense? :P