Take a look at the news or plug into social (there’s nothing social about it) media for a few a minutes and you’d be forgiven for thinking the world is all doom and gloom: a bombing here, another mass shooting there, large helpings of corruption, with an extra side order of state capture.
And let’s not forget about the griping; the endless, endless griping and whinging and gnashing of teeth about … speed humps and sightings of homeless people in the leafy suburbs and not getting the recognition we deserve for our self-serving good deeds, while on the other planet, just across the road or on the other side of railway line, people have to use a bucket to go to the toilet.
Humanity seems in ever shorter supply and our collective moral compass seems to be on the blink in the selfie bubble we have come to inhabit and call life.
It’s easy to feel lost and overwhelmed at times like these, but maybe the best thing we can do is try to stay focused on the things that are working and the people who are doing the sorts of things that can make us still feel okay about being part of the human race.
In this week’s Tabletalk, you’ll find some of those folk: the entrants in the Miss Deaf Africa pageant who is inspiring deaf communities, Katherine Brink who is opening a home for vulnerable children in Morningstar, and of course Reverend Stefan Hippler who has fallen in love with our country and continues to fight against the HIV/Aids pandemic that has wounded it so deeply.
These are all people who have experienced their fair share of hardship, but instead of letting it knock them down, they’ve chosen to come out fighting and inspire others.
Imagine what the news, or those anti-social media pages, would look like if we all had their attitude.
