THINK DIFFERENT! By Dr. Parris Lyew-Ayee and based on activities over the past week (April 5 to April 11, 2015).
Presidential Visit and Legacy I had the privilege of being in the audience at President Obama’s Young Leaders Town Hall on Thursday, and I walked away with quite a few interesting thoughts from the experience. Not least among these was the fact that not everyone was either young or a leader, though for the latter, let’s give them the benefit of the doubt and label them ‘future’ leaders. For both, there is a very loose definition of ‘young’ and ‘leader.’ And, judging from the number of Americans in the audience as well, it wasn't a Jamaican thing either. But never mind - the star of the show was about to arrive. And he didn’t disappoint either. Love him or hate him, the man is damn smart. Fielding freestyle questions in a country he’d been in for just a few hours, and tackling difficult questions without
deferring them (China, Cuba) or telling us what we wanted to hear (Ganja - teppa). Even gracefully handling one of the most embarrassing and cringe-worthy questions I’d ever heard publicly. The man is a star. And that was before his Singapore shout-out! I’ll get to that another time. But here was the biggest takeaway for me: President Obama made note that people who want to hurt the world don’t take days off, so why should we. “No days off,” he said. This resonated deeply within me, and reflects both a personal and professional sensibility, but often seems alien in society today. We take things too literally sometimes, when people interpret this as not having personal time, or a proper work-life balance etc. Religious people scream the loudest at any inkling of intruding into days of worship; save the screams for the murder rate, child abuses and carnage on the road, as well as matters of moral decay in society. But No Days Off doesn’t mean perpetual rat-racing. It means making the world a better place, where the world is your life, your family, your home, your skills, your job, your friends, your co-workers, your neighbours, everything. Don’t sit back and wait for things to come to you that may never come to pass. Don’t blame others when this happens. Despise the free gift. ure he wasn’t here for 24 hours. But we got some roads repaired. We, as a society, behaved ourselves. I’d never been in line so long, without water or food or anything (even Disney doesn’t trap us that long, and certainly not without the option of buying a $10 small coke), and the main event 40 minutes late, and no one complaining, stampeding, or generally making asses of themselves. We can do it. Let’s try doing another 24 hours of good behavior. Then string together another one. And another. Pass it on. See what happens.
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