Good People

I have the great good fortune of living in the Co Down village of Castlewellan. It is a beautiful town nestled in the Mournes where walkers have come for generations to commune with nature. As I walked into town yesterday morning I was struck by the realisation that we are blessed with a disproportionately high number of good people. They nod, greet you with a smile or a joke so that complete strangers seem like friends. In Castlewellan I’ve never met a bad person. I then tried to recall if I’d ever met a bad one, not only in Castlewellan but anywhere. No I haven’t; how strange! Good people have guided me through my darkest moments, surgically intervened to save my life, shared their experiences of life to support me and still persist in bringing me joy, laughter and the best of music. What did I do to deserve such good neighbours? Nothing at all. Each of us has an innate intelligence that recognises the perfection in others and drives us to be our best selves, thereby building healthy communities. Around the world various conflicts and tensions suggest others are having a torrid time; so what’s the difference? I suspect that vested interests, power and greed are used to distract people from experiencing their true nature. At heart all of us want to live in a clean, peaceful and prosperous world. As a coach I want to help us achieve it, both as individuals and also at business and societal levels. There are limitless excuses used to defend entrenched positions that prolong conflict. All of us are masters of the very human trend to blame someone else, their personalities, business ethics or their societies for everything that’s going wrong in our lives or the world. Only a few brave souls successfully undertake the recovery journey that demands that we take a full moral inventory of our lives. No one escapes the dreaded AFLO (Another F………. Learning Opportunity) but we can embrace the opportunities they bring and grow Better rather than Bitter. It’s perhaps through habitualising reflective practice that we grow in tolerance and diminish in judgement. That vastly improves our chances of only encountering Good People