On Sunday, the 28^th day of June, 2015 we were awakened to the sad news that sunk our hearts in unimaginable depths. I am talking about the Taiwan Formosa water park disaster where partying youth sustained varying degrees of burn. It was a terrible event and our hearts go out to all the victims and the people of New Taipei. The immediate reaction of the Premier of Taiwan is quite commendable, he identified the root cause of the disaster and put it to bed by banning all public events related to the use of colour powder in Taiwan. He knew what was important and took the right step. He didn’t say it was the handy work of his enemies. This incident reminds us a great deal of the story of a man in some other part of the world. Now let me tell you his story.

There was a very wealthy man named Airegin. He even had the potential to be the wealthiest man in the world considering his size and resources. He is quite successful in business and has some influence in politics. This success has however made him anxious and prompted him to invest heavily in “security”; unfortunately his investment is not the best there is. The security detail is programmed to see enemies only because Airegin is constantly unsettled by the thought of the presence of those that don’t like him. On a cool Saturday morning, he went jogging in the company of his bodyguards. As fate would have it, a vehicle lost control, veered off the road and struck the mighty Airegin. Seeing the rage in their eyes and fearing for his safety, the driver zoomed off. Remember the body guards as noted earlier were wired to identify and eliminate enemies?  Now this is the sorry part, with their principal bleeding and in serious pains the guards ran after the “Hit ‘n’ Run” driver. Airegin called out for help but none of them heard because that wasn’t in their program. On their return to the accident site thirty minutes later after getting hold of the driver, they found their principal in a coma in the pool of his own blood. It took them less than ten minutes to get to the hospital but nothing could be done to stop his passage to the great beyond as he experienced internal hemorrhage and several other complications.

Many felt Airegin was murdered by the driver but truth be told, he committed suicide. How? He constructed roads as contractor without pedestrian lanes even though the specification contained one. Also, he didn’t train his security to identify what’s important in a given situation; they weren’t informed that there is no default universal solution to all problems. If only the body guards had focused on the safety and well-being of their principal, he could have survived.

From time immemorial, it has been our culture to leave the most important things and chase water falls. As a people, instead of solving our problems we keep playing the blame game and chasing people we have tagged as “enemies”. We need to care more for the inside than the outside, this we can do by creating new opportunities and promoting competition. That we don’t agree doesn’t make me your enemy. We need to break free from the chains of yester years that surround us by looking at the bigger picture. Provide solutions to the problems and hurdles placed by the “enemies”. We need to learn a great lesson from the manner the Premier of Taiwan responded to the disaster.

Picture credit: http://www.attaindesign.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/the-bigger-picture.png