There's always an agenda

My Bangkok - a city with so many layers.

One lesson I have learnt, living in My Bangkok, is that there is always an agenda when people approach me for taking on an unannounced task or for proclaiming ground breaking news.  As I often say here - all is not what it seems.  And it is the agenda underneath that really matters.   

I share this as I try to make sense of my crazy life and crazy world.  In the past week, an insight came to me the hard way.  I realized that I too often rant about the nature of the big world out there, doing so at the expense of my own little world, which deserves so much more attention and upon which I can act.  I think to myself, acting on my little world leads to my acting more effectively on the big world.  After all, wherever we are, we are all broken.  

I can so easily critcize and analyse out there, while doing nothing to better my own life, something that I can act on.  Is that not crazy behaviour?   So does the life agenda of making this a better world just become a game, a discussion point for the coffee table?  What to say?  

When you come to me anxious and worried, just tell me what is going on.  

I can cope with the facts.  I just cannot deal with the unknown.  

I won't say you are lying, because I know you are not, but there is a reason why you withhold the full story from me.  I don't get it.  

When you do this, I cannot help, as best I can, and truth is it hurts.  

There is a reason for not coming clean with me.  

You not trust me?

You not want to include me?

You want to use me? 

I not know why and honestly I not care.  

What matters is showing me the respect I deserve as a fellow human being.  

That is it.  

To hide the agenda is purposeful and cunning.  

You might not think so but it is to choose that we are not equals, working on the same side.  

Inclusion matters.  Respect matters.  Don't play games with such core ingredients of life. 

Let's not fool ourselves; let's not fool others.  

Let's not hide that agenda, least of all from ourselves.  That is not fair to anyone, least of all ourselves.  

Together we can build a better self, a better people, a better world.     

.