A future based on more than hope

Clive Bibby

Opinion

As the tumultuous year of 2023 draws to a close and while we turn our minds to a well-earned break with family and friends, safe from the constant battering that has made life almost impossible to bear, we have an opportunity to reflect on the good fortune we have as a community blessed more than most. 

That assessment of our riches may seem incompatible with the reality many are currently enduring.

However, our recent experience of life dealing with new-found insecurities also teaches us about how we might cope during prolonged adversity and emerge in a communal state better than before.

And hopefully, the biggest change we will see is in our attitude towards one another.

It is just unfortunate that we had to go through this enormous upheaval and challenge in order to focus on the things that really matter, which actually have very little to do with money.

Sure, we can’t survive on drip-fed support from central government, and there needs to be a way to unlock our potential for growth that will ultimately see us in a position of self-sufficiency.

But first comes the challenge of planning for a future that includes every citizen within our own areas of responsibility; and then the hard bit of putting aside our personal grievances and exaggerated sense of entitlement, that have held us back from becoming the place we can all

enjoy and bequeath to the generations who will follow.

I offer these thoughts as one man’s view of what is possible only because l know that there are lots of others out there who have been and are still struggling to survive in a situation that is not of their making.

It has been a horrible experience for those families reliant on income from businesses they have spent a lifetime building, that is now non-existent. Nobody of character likes to be in a position of having to go begging to local and central government in order to survive, but unfortunately this has been the lot of many who have traditionally contributed to the region’s wellbeing through good times and bad. They have no choice.

Finally, back to the future.

There are ways to survive these bad times and enable us all to achieve what currently seems a utopian dream. They are based on the one change l mentioned earlier in this piece — us all working together to plan our future.

If we succeed, as l believe we can, it will be because we have realised that our future depends almost exclusively on a change in attitude towards one another.

“We are our brother’s keeper.” It’s about time we started to act in unison, to make that line a true reflection of who we are and who we want to be.

Happy Christmas and here’s to a much better 2024.