We need to inhale and count to 10
Dear Editor,
My heart is heavy after reading the Jamaica Observer cover story of Friday, July 1, 2016, ‘In God’s hands’.
As I read the story of the student travelling to school I am not considering so much who shot up the car, but rather why it was shot up. It doesn’t matter whether he was a policeman or not. It certainly doesn’t matter to the girl lying in a coma in the hospital’s intensive care. Look at the reason: one driver, ‘bad-drive’ another driver, so one shot at the other.
Isn’t this so reminiscent of the schoolboy shot in the back of the taxi by an X6 driver only a few years ago?
I find myself wondering how we, as a people, can be so short-tempered and violence-driven. There is hardly a day that passes without some severe act of violence being inflicted on one Jamaican by another Jamaican. We may raise a fuss when immigration kicks us out of their country, but look at us. Do we really deserve any better?
We need to be better. We need to inhale and count to 10. We need to forgive our brother and let it go. We need to realise that there are blessings in store for the penitent, the patient, and the lenient.
My son has been learning at school how to control his emotions and express his feelings. I understand this is standard at his school now. We need more of that training embedded in schools and in public education. There are more emotions than happy and angry. We lash out at the most nonsensical things. It takes time, but we need to start.
Robert Howell
rsjhowelljm@gmail.com
