Man In The Mirror

Dear lovely people,

My most admired singer, songwriter, record producer, dancer, and actor is the all-time best King of Pop - Michael Jackson. One of his most critically acclaimed songs is Man In The Mirror in which Michael actually goes a step further and offers a straightforward homily of personal commitment:

"I'm starting with the man in the mirror

I'm asking him to change his ways

And no message could have been any clearer

If you wanna make the world a better place

Take a look at yourself and then make a change."

  

Michael’s song actually breaks bounds by departing from popular themes of love, sex and heartbreak as seen in pop music today and rather focuses on the efforts of an individual to improve himself and change the world.

  

We make dreams to change ourselves and the world but partly due to our own inequities, lack of focus, internally crafted factors both conscious and unconscious, compounded by external circumstances beyond our control work in synergy to make us fail with devastating consequences sometimes.

The world today suffers from a major men and women problem that has overwhelmed families, divorce courts, social services, schools, and the criminal justice system. It has so confounded gender norms that men and women alike lead lukewarm, often defeated, lives-and they hate it.

Michael’s "Man in the Mirror" remains popular as highlighted by the continued importance of the questions it raises: What is the individual's responsibility to society? Can we change the world by changing ourselves? What is the power of one person to create change? Whether it is homelessness, poverty, AIDS, nuclear weaponry, or war, Michael Jackson in that song inspires listeners the world over to do something about human suffering for longer than a passing moment.

A good starting point for us all Michael points out, is to look at the man in the mirror? All around us are people with attitude problems, people needing help, people without money, food or clothing, people who have lost hope and dreams. Yet we count our blessings just like Michael who references his favorite winter coat while turning a blind eye to the plight of the poor.

If we all start looking at the man in the mirror, then, we’ll end with a better vision for our lives after a proper diagnosis of our ways and adopting the requisite treatment plan and execution strategy.

Today, decide to …make that change.