January 28, 2015

Individual Social Responsibility

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At a conference I attended earlier this week, during a imagedigital briefing, one of the speakers described all the attendees in the room as “digital immigrants”, as opposed to our children who are far more likely to be “digital natives”.

I hadn’t heard this turn of phrase before and yet it immediately made perfect sense.

It underscored the point that was being made and it also got me thinking about how the younger generations today are so far ahead of where I was at that stage of life, and in so many other ways besides.

Margot’s bone marrow donor was a 22 year old man. I’d be embarrassed to go into the specifics of what I was doing at that age, but suffice to say I wasn’t being particularly selfless or benevolent, nor was I thinking about or behaving in such a way that I might save another persons life !

The day Margot was diagnosed with leukaemia, my life changed irretrievably, as did my perspective on life. Of course, I cannot change the past, but I can think and behave differently going forward.

I do believe that I am now on a better path and that I am a better person as a result of what has happened, so in that sense, I could be described as a “socially responsible immigrant”.

Here’s wishing for ever more socially responsible natives and hopefully, more like me who might exercise individual social responsibility and find themselves moving in a similar direction of travel, but without first having to suffer the loss of a loved one.

Husband to Vicki and father to Oscar (2007), Rufus (2008), Digby (2015), Humphrey (2017) & Margot (2012-2014)

Posted in: Journal