Be the change – then see the change

Photo used under Creative Commons licence.

Which way do we want our children to go?

At Panther Taekwondo, our classes are for children (and of course for adults) from many different backgrounds and cultures. Everyone learns respect. Then everyone shows it to everyone else, and suddenly you’ve got the beginning of real changes in attitudes that can carry forward into all areas of young people’s lives.

That’s why I do believe there’s a chance for those guys who are heading down the wrong path. If we got them into martial arts, or if  they had a little help or support before these ways of thinking get really embedded – that’s the time to make a difference.

But how?

In our day, there were youth centres. There were places that people could go to. These days, there’s nothing. Government decisions have taken those things away.

Now I don’t want to get too political about this, but I do believe that if something valuable is lost, we need to look around us in society and ask who else can step up to plug that gap. When something valuable has been lost and if it’s not replaced, there will be a cost to that.

Be the change – then see the change

For example, there are churches. Churches usually run on Friday, maybe, Saturday, sometimes Sunday as well. Friday, Saturday, Sunday. What do they do with that hall for the rest of the week? That’s where the children could go and have a little bit of fun and have a little interaction amongst each other. They’ll get to know each other. They’ll become a community. They’ll stop fighting each other.

They’ll learn to see each other as human beings – people, not members of an opposing faction. They’ll see what they have in common. That’s the spirit that they need – and they have a better chance of learning it if we display it in our lives too. A real sense of community – kindred spirit. Acceptance of others, acceptance of difference.

Be the change – then see the change. That’s how it needs to go – for all of our futures.