It's All About Confidence

A pill to fill your potential?

How well I remember when I was a teenager, and it could be why I have some affinity with teenagers, that when I was one if it wasn't shyness it was acne. And put them both together and, believe you me, you had a problem. It might be something to laugh about now. I don't think it is, but it certainly isn't if you are a teenager. A shy person obviously lacks confidence, and whilst this won't kill you, it can certainly ruin your life.

I have said before that so many people in this part of the world never achieve their full potential and the reason is not lack of talent, but lack of confidence. If it does turn out that this shyness pill really does work then we had better look out because life in this part of the world will never be the same. Take our local Parish Councillors; will all of them be under the age of 30? Will one or two Chairmen be no more than 20 years of age? Who's to say the future Editor of our Village Pump will not be a Lady no more than 19 years old? I attach great importance to this question of Confidence; you can forget about Education and Ability, that's there already in place.

How then do we foster this confidence? I think us much older people have a very important role to play. If we stop for a moment to consider for example the role of women in our area, there is clear evidence that in the past they have been discriminated against. Only recently have we had a Methodist Minister who is a Lady! All our Doctor's are Men! Lady Chairmen of our Parish Councils, I've never known any. Headmasters of our local schools, yes you have it, all men, and so on. You can't blame any of this on the young, but you can us oldies, what did we do about it? Nothing! Now if we accept all of that, then we must accept that this same discrimination has been practised against our young people, certainly by implication.

In the past were women encourage to play their part? No, and neither have our young people. It will be said that there is nothing to stop young people from volunteering for whatever. Well I think there is; it's this question of confidence. Can you for example expect, say a 20 year old, to put up for office where probably everyone else there is nearly 50, or even older? The onus should be on us older one's to encourage the young, to inspire confidence in them. The question remains though, 'Can the young and old work Together?' It depends on whether you are talking physically or mentally, we will all be physically of different ages, but mentally we should all be the same age.

Les Lawrence