We need to have a positive attitude and be responsible.

"Caring for those parents who brought me up is my responsibility," claims one guy. "As for the others, why do I care?"

While it is true that nobody can force anyone to be responsible for anything, we ought to think of the consequences of our actions. According to me, everything that concerns this world is also our responsibility. Of course, we can only do so much, given our limited resources, our limited time and our limited energy. However, that is not an excuse not to do anything at all.

Just as our wise Confuscius said,"A journey of a thousand miles begin with one step." Thus, with one step forward, there can be a second and a third step to follow and soon the thousand miles or kilometers are covered. Similarly, every endeavour begins with each of us doing whatever we can for anything in and around our environment. Whatever good deed a person does today will be imitated and followed with another by another person.

I remember a time when my parents and I lived in a house in Caunter Hall, now known as Jalan P. Ramlee, in Penang. It was then some kind of Chinese village. There was one night some burglars tried to pry open the window of one of the houses. A neighbour saw the robber, took out his tin-can and started hitting it with a stick. The sound awaken the other neighbours and they too did the same thing with their sticks and metal containers, thus causing sufficient noise to frighten off the robbers. Now, if that neighbour who took the trouble to make a din to awaken everyone did not think it any of his business to be responsible for the safety of his neighbours, then it is the attitude that would be most welcome by the the roobers and thieves. It would be an attitude they need to go about with their criminal work. Fortunately, people who lived in far-away villages knew they need to cultivate the attitude of looking after each other's interest. They knew they cannot afford not to care. They have to be responsible or face the dangers individually as that would be the consequence of being not responsible for everyone in the village.

Security is just one aspect of our life. There is cleanliness, finance and assistance in so many forms. If the people in a village refuses to be responsible for the cleanliness of his village and starts to throw things anywhere they like, they will experience and realise the outcome of their attitude towards the responsibility to keep their village clean very soon when disease or sickness brings weakness and death. Criticism will be made where necessary and action by the village headman will awaken the recalcitrant to the need to be responsible. With greater responsibility come closer and better relationship which will ensure aid be given where and when necessary in nay tragedy that may before any family.

If we can see the need to be responsible and the consequences that may result, then we should be able to understand that we are also responsible for the whole world. After all what is the whole world but a bigger family. No doubt, a bigger world has certain difficulties when it comes to society's recalcitrant members. There is greater need for education of the masses and a need for laws to be enforced to ensure that a sense of responsibility where the right positive attitude is less prevalent.

Difficult as it may seem, every member of society has to do their part to ensure the world will be safe and secure for the future of the people we love; our friends, our children and our grandchildren and our great grandchildren.

Whatever we do today will affect the world of our beloved. In fact, this very minute, the world is getting hotter and hotter and while people suffer from the heat in the tropics, ice is melting at the poles causing traumatic changes that could harm the world we live in. We cannot be selfish and declare that our life would be over soon before any harm to our world can become more evident. We cannot afford not to care or be responsible as long as we know we will be leaving behind many people we love when the time comes for us to depart from it.

The greatest love we can ever declare to the beloved people we leave behind one sure day is to start, each in his/her own way, being responsible in every possible way for everything in our environment.

We have to start caring more or else whatever love we declare for anyone will sound so hollow and empty. And if there is none on this planet you do love, then you are one of the most sorrowful person in this world.