Reign.

Power and responsibility. Modern society appears to be increasingly focused on the self and self-betterment, and the gratification of personal experience. To that end we invest time and resources into trying to ‘build better lives’ for ourselves, or to seek gratification in many different ways.

Our televisions tell us that we have a right to be happy, our psychologists tell us that ‘feeling not depressed’ is not good enough, our corporations tell us that happiness can be purchased. Even our religion tells us that ‘god’ (or whatever deity(s) you profess belief in) wants you to be happy. It’s all me, me, me, and mine, mine, mine.

By the end of the holiday season, Australians would have spent billions of dollars and uncountable hours in the pursuit of ‘happiness’. How much of that time and money has gone into helping their fellow man I wonder?

Power and responsibility. Overwrought and overused, yes, but still as true today as when Ben Parker (fictionally) spoke those words. To live is in itself, a sort of ‘power’. Therefore, life, and the living of it, is a ‘responsibility’. I would like to extend that further, and say that your fellow man, by virtue of the fact that you have ‘power’, are also your responsibility. Because if it’s not your responsibility, whose responsibility is it?

The general belief seems to be that responsibility begins and ends with the self. But again, if you don’t make that first move, will you realistically expect anyone else to do so? A society of persons complaining that ‘nothing happens’ and that ‘someone should do something about it’ serves no purpose other than perpetuating the status quo. Saying ‘it’s not my problem’ is shirking responsibility. It’s giving up your inherent right to make a difference, to matter, and ceding that power to someone else. Then we complain that we as the common man have no power to change the world.

Power and responsibility. We all have the power to touch other lives, to make a difference. To be somebody to someone else. That’s a responsibility. A sacred charge. Maybe that’s why I want to go into psychology, or to be more accurate, counselling. Because I’ll be damned if I don’t step up and be counted. Because I know I can make a difference in the lives of my fellow man.

The world does need saving. It needs saving from itself. I go to save the world, one life at a time, who will come with me?