True Values

These post-election days have left many in the country feeling blue in every way and have set me to wondering about  "values."
About how much value politicians give to what their voters say. 
About what is truly valued in our society.
About individual value.
About how some people seem to have a distorted sense of self-value while others seem to believe they have no value at all..
About how, if we are not careful, people will begin to believe that there is little value or point in anything they do.
These days,  value seems to be measured in purely economic terms.
Decisions are made about our future by estimating how much we will each cost, not what we are each worth.
Value is defined by distant politicians who know nothing about us, have no interest in what we actually do and appear to care very little about what we truly value.
We live in a  topsy-turvy world of underpaid  "hands-on,"workers  and overpaid " hands-off," managers.
We live in an impersonal world where success is based on generic data analysis rather than on individual, personal triumphs.
We live in a fearful world where people are constantly worried that they will soon be unemployed.
We live in an austere world where government cuts are tearing apart what we value  most.
It's not surprising that there is an overriding sense of disillusionment and detachment.
It's not surprising that morale is low.
It's not surprising that we are beginning to believe that no one cares about what we do or what we say.
It's not surprising that people feel personally and professionally undervalued.
Our government chips away at our public services, at our National Health System, at our education system, at our social services, at our youth services, at the heart and soul of what we have always valued as unique and special.
Everything becomes an economic statistic.
It doesn't matter how hard you work, how many extra hours you give, if you don't reach your targets you are not good value for money.
It doesn't matter how many people you help  or what you actually achieve, if you don't meet your agreed goals, you have failed. 
If there is no value to individual achievement, then what do we have left to value.
Immigrants are an economic drain, illness is an economic drain, old-age is an economic drain, disability is an economic drain.
No matter that immigrants are broadening our horizons and doing jobs none of us want to do, no matter how much people gave and did before they became ill, no matter how hard or for how long or with what sense of pride people worked until they reached pensionable age, no matter that those with disabilities can often make us see life in a different and  better way.
Chances are that at some point in the future, we will, all of us,  be seen as a drain on society rather than valued for what we have done and achieved.
If everything is a financial problem and the only solution is to cut costs, whatever the consequences, it gets harder and harder to value or be valued.
And anyway, who decides how much we are worth.
Who decides that a paramedic, driving the ambulance, first on the scene of an accident or emergency, should earn in a year what some surgeons earn in a month?
Who decides that cleaners, removing the dirt and scum we create, earn in a week what some footballers earn in 10 minutes? 
Who decides that the nursery assistants we leave our children ( our most treasured possessions) with each day earn on average, half as much as the parents whose children they are looking after? 
We live in confusing, unappreciative, undervaluing times.
Thank goodness human nature is such a wonderful  thing.
Our indefatigable desire to survive, to make the best of things, to live, love and laugh despite it all is a constantly inspiring. 
In the end, the only way to navigate our way through this economically fragile world world of natural disasters and ridiculously unfair financial distribution, is to hold on tightly to the personal, emotional and moral values we have always tried to live by.
I was listening on the radio this week, to the story told by someone who had flown to Katmandu to bring aid to the earthquake victims in Nepal.

As he stepped out of the plane, the aid worker, was immediately invited to drink tea by some of the  exhausted, shell-shocked survivors.
Even when faced with such extreme devastation and despair, the Nepalese people clung on to their core values, finding the strength to be welcoming and extend the hand of friendship, however little they have to offer.
Sometimes values are all we have left.
Sometimes the values of others are truly humbling.
Our core values give us hope, they form the essence of who we are and what we believe, they are a solid scaffold of certainty in a fragile, unpredictable world.
They are where we turn to when we are searching for inner strength, looking for a reason to do what we do.
True value is not something that can be decided by politicians or business men or world leaders.
What we truly value is based on what we learn from our parents, from our friends, from the world around us, from our own experience and emotional responses.
Even if we sometimes need reminding of what those values are.

This year, I have been working with an autistic boy.
Together his family and I have been trying to help him find his voice.
Last September he could make a few sounds, sometimes say " no."
One evening, last week,  his mum phoned me, her voice was shaking.
" I just had to tell you,Becky," she said, " before he went to bed, I asked him to say "night night," to dad. I ask him to say it every night and he can do it if I walk over to his dad with him and he repeats the words after me.  But today, when I said it, he didn't wait for me.  He just ran and found his dad, gave him a hug, said " night night dad," and went up to his room."
Her voice was shaking.
" I never thought this day would come," she said.
His dad had waited ten years for those words and that hug.

There are some moments we value so much, they almost hurt.

In the end true value cannot be measured by the way others perceive us.
Instead, it should be measured by what we believe to be good, true and right.
And if we dare to live our lives with those true values at its heart, we will always, always be proud of what we achieve.
And no political party, however big their majority, can take that away from us.

Election Burnout Bitch

Since I have a lot of time on my hands at the moment, I vowed that this would be the election when I listen carefully to everything the politicians have to say.
This would be the election when I would  become extremely politically motivated and aware.
I promised myself that I would be open-minded, non-judgemental, unbiased and, most definitely, uncynical. 
And I do try.
I try to stop my mind from wandering while I listen to live debates on the radio.
I try to concentrate on what is being said by the party leaders on the television and not on their ( in some cases lack of) fashion sense.
But every time the speeches and arguments comes to an end. I find that I can't remember a single thing anyone has said.
" It's not them, it's you," says my husband Ninesh, " You can't blame the politicians for your inability to concentrate. You've been like it all your life. That's why I've found the jar of mustard in the bathroom cabinet, our credit cards at the bottom of the recycling bin and why most of our sharp knives have been thrown into the compost bin.
And, in many ways, ( most ways in fact ) he's right. 
I can't blame this one on the politicians. 
My attention span is small and my ability to day dream is big. 
But almost one hundred days of political campaigning has left me with pre-election burnout. 
I long for the day when I can turn on the radio without having to listen to any more lies, when I can switch on the television without having to watch  sycophantic politicians  telling me what their opponent  can't or won't do and why nothing is their fault.
I've yet to hear them tell me what their own parties can and will do or take actual responsibility for anything.
All these days and weeks and words on, I still haven't heard a politician who can create a vision I want to believe in.
Most of the time it feels as though they don't really have a vision themselves.
Most of the time it feels as though they are on a journey that will end with their egos being boosted and a lot of personal power being gained.
Where has all the colour and the passion gone?
Politics used to be exciting.
Politicians used to be able to make their voters believe in something. 
Now it feels as though they are delivering their speeches from ivory towers, untouched by the dirt and grind of normal, everyday living.
Where are the sparks and the battles?
There is so little to choose between the main parties now, that it's hard to know where one grey suit ends and another begins ( lucky they wear different coloured ties).

And all of this is probably why the nationalist parties are doing so well.
At least the flags they are waving separate them from each other.
We may not understand the nitty-gritty details of what they would actually do if they were in power, but we know what they stand for.
Their message is clear:
UKIP doesn't like foreigners- but isn't racist ( yeah, right! )
The SNP wants Scotland to be independent.
Plaid Cymru wants an independent Wales.
Easy.
And if we know nothing else about the Green Party, we know that it wants us to care more about the environment.
Cameron, Clegg and Miliband, on the other hand, want whatever their voters want them to want. 
Their messages seem to change with the popularity wind..
I find that instead of becoming more knowledgable and politically aware, I have become more confused and turned into a pre-election bitch.
I watch debates and all I can do is judge the women on how they dress: hot-dresser, power-dresser, sack- wearer.
I listen on the radio and all I can do is judge the men by how their voices sound: boring, revolting, panicked, better-when-drunk.

I see a canvasser at the door and I hide behind the sofa.
I'm horrified at the superficial person I have become. 
What's happened? 
Where have I gone?
I'm sure I used to care.
I'm sure I used to believe in something.
I'm sure the politicians did too.
But 95 days of mostly meaningless pre-election banter is slowly killing me.
I've lost the political will to live.

I challenge our politicians to sum up in one word, what their party believes in.
I bet they couldn't do it.
I bet they couldn't use just one word where hundreds would do. 
I bet they couldn't be concise and clear when they could be waffly and confusing.
Come on, give us just one word!

I can't wait for the 7th of May.
I can't wait to put my cross on the ballot paper and walk out of that poling station.
Because however disillusioned I might feel, voting is the only voice I have.
If you don't vote, you sacrifice your right to moan.
Those who do nothing, do not have the right to complain about those who do something, however little it is.
But I can't wait for it to be over.
I can't wait to shed my superficial pre-election bitchiness.
I can't wait to stop pretending to listen.
I can't wait to go back to being the caring, deep-thinking, Gogglebox-watching, pizza-eating  person that I truly am.
And just think, on Friday 8th May, it will only be 1460 days to the next election...and I can't wait.