Sometimes hope is hard to find

I was driving to my IT guys office today and saw something that gave me reason to think maybe we shouldn't be hopeful about the future. I should probably firstly say that I'm usually a positive person. In most circumstances I can see how the human spirit can, and usually does, triumph over adversity. But today was a bit different.

My travels took me through Rivervale, a working class suburb of Perth, but one that isn't particularly rugged or rough, and one where you could expect to drive trough without too many problems. What I saw shocked me. In broad daylight and in full view of the public, I saw a young man shooting up on the sidewalk. It wasn't so much the drug taking - there's plenty of that happening. It wasn't even so much where it happened. After all, even wealthy suburbs are full of drugs. I guess what unsettled me was the apparent hopelessness of the scene. Here was a young man with his life in front of him and all he could see was the point of a needle plunging in to his arm in order to get high. I just thought that, if that's the future of our country and our planet, then we don't have much of a future.

I'm really not sure what to make of this but I guess what I saw is a very small unrepresentative sample of today's youth. What I didn't see is all though young people working at creating a future for themselves by studying or working at a trade or generally contributing to society. I hope to continue to set an example to give the world a better future.