Are You Awake?

            Sometimes I wonder if a good portion of the world isn’t walking around with their brains half asleep. It’s like people are somehow completely unaware that other people are... well, people.

            I hear stories of news site editors claiming writers do better work if they aren’t being paid. At my old job, I had a regional supervisor who proudly talked about how the first business he ran hired immigrants straight off the boat got away with paying them less than minimum wage because they didn’t know any better. People protest about minimum wages being raised because people flipping burgers have it easy (meanwhile, food service is an extremely high-stress environment).

            Yet, all of those people are people. Where are they supposed to get their money, if not from their jobs? Everyone needs to pay bills and feed themselves. Everyone deserves to be paid for the work they do, everyone deserves to be able to live a decent life. Not all business owners are rolling in cash, but if the business isn’t making enough to pay the workers a decent amount, why is it still running?

            Across the world, people are tossed aside as being part of a group. Is their skin a different colour? Do they speak differently? Is their religion different? Obviously, everyone who falls into a category is exactly the same as all the others from it.

            Except that each of those people is an individual person. They have their own life, their own views, their own beliefs. Few people actually fit their stereotypes.

            While waiting in line, people get mad about the people in front of them who are holding them up, without considering that those people are just like them – or that they themselves are holding up the people behind them. When driving down the road, people honk and swear at the person in front of them for going too slow, without even pausing to think – that’s a person. Maybe they’re a new driver, or there’s a pedestrian in front of them, or they have some other reason for going that speed.

            Each person out there is a person and deserves consideration. How can anyone possibly not recognise that the people around them are not just organic obstacles?

            Perhaps their brains really are half asleep. What will it take to wake them up?

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her life coaching website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.