I was researching someone online and came across a so-called motivational site urging young people to get up and do something… to make something of themselves… to stand out from the crowd or risk sinking into obscurity…  fate that appeared to be almost ‘worse than death’ to the site’s author.

For a motivational piece, I found it rather counterproductive. All that I could see that it was doing was reinforcing, in the minds of the young and as yet uncertain, that they obviously were not good enough as they were. In order to have value within their society, they were being told, they would need to change… become something ‘other’ than they are. Different… and by implication, better.

That we are all works in progress, no matter what our age, and that we all need to continue to learn from our lives should go without saying. I doubt we would…