"Why do we have to choose between Left and Right? All we want is to go Forward." (Ronaldo7)
"We're not here to be punished. We're here to be educated." (Andrew Matthews)
"Be the change you want to see in the world." (Mahatma Gandhi)
"Can you help me with my homework, Dad?"
Dad has an instinctive first line of defence when someone asks him to help; he puts a worried look on his face and comes up with a list of excuses: "I would love to, but I have to fix the car and I have to mow the lawn and I have to buy things for dinner and when your mum comes home from work she expects that dinner to be on the table too, and after dinner... You know tonight Spain plays against Italy, right?"
"So football is more important than homework. Okay, Dad. I'll remember that for the next time I have to do homework."
Dad didn't expect that: "No, I mean..."
"It's OK, Dad. You go fix the car and do the shopping. Meanwhile, I'll do you a favour and mow the lawn. That will take me an hour, so you'll have an hour available to help me with my homework. Do we have a deal?"
Dad is surprised. He almost looks proud of me, suggesting this practical solution. And, of course, it helped that I'll take over the job that he likes least of all. He smiles: "We have a deal. I'll make sure I'll be back at... 4 o'clock. Okay?"
Mowing the lawn is not my favourite entertainment, but this time I don't mind because it gives me the opportunity to think my homework over one more time.
At 4 o'clock I have prepared tea and Dad has bought cookies, so the team is prepared to start under the best conditions. I kick-off: "At school, we have a project that's called 'Forward'. We have to come up with an idea to make the world a better place and write an essay about it. I gave my idea the title 'Favours'. It works... well, like I just proved to you: I do you a favour, and you pay me back the favour by doing something for me. I mow the lawn and you pay me back by helping me with my homework. My idea uses favours to solve indirect problems."
Dad tries to understand: "Indirect problems? What's that?"
I explain: "A direct problem has a negative influence on your life, but you can solve it yourself: when you're hungry you grab a cookie or prepare a sandwich, when there is nothing to eat you can go to the supermarket, when your car doesn't start you fix it... Indirect problems are problems too, but you don't solve them because they don't have a direct negative influence on your life or it is something you can't solve yourself.
For people with a job, unemployment is just an indirect problem. Their neighbour or their friend loses his job and all everyone says is: 'There is nothing we can do about it.' They could buy local products on the street market instead of imported products, to support local labour, but they just think about the lowest price and don't care much about the consequences of their choices.
Perhaps a better example is how we think about our own health. When we catch a cold, we notice a direct problem that makes us run to doctors and pharmacies immediately, but in cases of an indirect problem like avoiding a heart attack, the number one killer of our time, we prefer to smoke, to eat too much and to move as little as possible. We're not focussed on indirect problems and when they start becoming direct problems, it might be too late."
Dad summarises my explanation to show he has understood: "So indirect problems do have a negative influence on our lives, but we don't solve them until they become direct problems. I'm without a job. That was not caused by my own behaviour, but by the indirect problem of the bad economy, that caused bad financial results for the service station I worked for. They fired me and solved their direct problem by giving it to me."
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Stories for in the Campfire
Humor@Ronaldo7Siete is serious about only one thing: he thinks he's the funniest writer at Wattpad. Of course, everybody laughs about that, but... doesn't that mean that he has a point? In 9 tragedies Ronaldo warns us about writing; he tells about his...
