The man in the mirror

MICHELLE N WEARS-BROWNE

THE TIME has come for people everywhere to do some introspection. This season of “peace on Earth” should encourage that we do. Covid19 has adjusted the way we live and behave, but while many are clamouring for a return to normalcy and others are encouraging adjustment to the “new normal,” it is incumbent that each of us comes face to face with the proverbial “man in the mirror.”

In examining our behaviours toward each other prior to the pandemic, we can identify so much unkindness, so much human suffering, so many injustices brought on by man against man, brother against brother, sister against sister, neighbour against neighbour, colleague against colleague. Even as the world clamours for a cure for the deadly virus, many continue to practise behaviours which bring unhappiness and discord. They remain brutish, selfish, covetous, jealous, haters, slanderers, gossipers, liars, they are simply mean to each other.

I sometimes ponder whether the pandemic should be a wake-up call for all the world. Should this be an opportunity for re-examination of our personal responsibilities to nature, the Earth upon which we live? Should we be re-examining how we behave or have behaved with our relatives, our charges, our employers, our country and just people in general?

A most disconcerting observation is the way many choose to relate to those who are less fortunate or even those who may not belong to the “in-group.” There has been the tendency to castigate, to tread down, to use positions of power and influence to leave people out. Some have taken pride in this behaviour, so much so that it has contributed to instances of anxiety, depression, stress and related illnesses, particularly when the person on the receiving end of the maltreatment is not in a position to respond.

This adult bullying occurs in so many spaces that it has become “normal.” In staff rooms, on the streets, in stores, offices, playgrounds, communities, on the highways and even religious institutions. Some badger, call names, force their positions on others, loudly proclaim their control over work systems and administrators, causing so much distress.

The man in the mirror must then examine himself. The man in the mirror is now at home, in most instances, by force and encumbered for health and safety reasons. Examine yourself! Examine your relationships! Are we doing what is right and just? Are we aware of how our actions and behaviours are or have been affecting others? Can you control those actions and behaviours so that you minimise their impact on your fellow human beings?

Strangely, covid19 has evened the playing field in a manner few of us have come to recognise. Whether you are rich or poor, employed or unemployed, widowed or orphaned, living in a penthouse or a humble cottage, driving a Lexus, Sunny or taking the bus, you, human, can meet your demise by a virus. It is no respecter of race or class.

The cynic may argue that you are not responsible for the actions and behaviours of your fellow human beings, and rightly so, but we have known age-old golden rules which speak to “doing unto others as you would like them do unto you,” and songs which tell of “peace on Earth [that] begins with me.” It does not have to be a religious ethic that informs practices of kindness and goodwill toward men, but even the nonreligious conventions such as those in the United Nations Charter of Human Rights emphasise the significance of basic human decency.

Psychologists view each day as an opportunity for change, growth and using what you can control to effect the change that one would like to make. How do we measure what is just and good? Is it by showing off or posting the number of hampers we have distributed to the poor and needy? Or the tokenism that passes for giving to the less fortunate in our society? How about the institutional practices which keep some subjugated?

Thing is, I read in some good book that “left hands are not supposed to know what right hands are giving,” and that “money for usury” is not recommended, and that “if a man brings his gift to the altar of God and hath ought against his brother…? And that what is good is to “love mercy, do justly and walk humbly...” So then I ponder?

This season of “goodwill to all men” presents the opportunity for each individual to re-examine himself/herself – that we are all flesh and blood.

Michelle N Wears-Browne is a trained psychologist and educator