Our own Caymanian pride

Help yourself when you can and as quick as you can. You have to use the abilities you have to better yourself. If you fail, bear the failure the best you can and use your energy to move forward. Educate yourself, pay attention, ask a question, work a little harder and combine these easy achievable talents to push you to a greater future. 

For success to be possible a person has to have self-worth, desire and pride. Do not squeeze yourself to fit an ideal that insults you or makes you feel uncomfortable. Have a realistic, logical and long-term plan. Never forget your dreams; have in your plan how to achieve your dreams. Be honest with yourself and what you need to do to improve yourself. Always push yourself to work harder but never forget to relax and step back from the race. 

Be aware of everything; make an effort to know and understand your surroundings. Never meddle or get involved in others’ affairs and always consider how other people’s behaviour affects you. Always protect yourself but never be opposed to kindness, from another or towards another. Enact the behaviours that you need to improve your life. If you are unsure or do not know how to help yourself, make an effort to learn; seek help when you can and the best you can. While seeking help always remember the importance of continually helping yourself. Through repetition and hard work things will change; it will not happen overnight. Even if you fail the first time, with an honest and heartfelt effort, you will succeed. Riches are important but all of us will not achieve riches. All of us can achieve a better life. We all have the ability to find a happier and wiser path. 

Cayman has changed a lot in the last decade, some positive, a lot of it negative. We are still here. The country still has to survive. The people are the only engine for this survival. If the people are suffering and struggling, so is the country. For the country to have a fruitful future, the people must have internal and steadfast pride. We exist in a system which breeds ignorance, helplessness and self-destruction. We as a people can change this by having enough pride to change ourselves from within. We have the ability to enrich and educate ourselves. We have the resources, now we have to learn how to use them. 

Once we have beneficial change as individuals, we can cause progressive change for the country. Look within yourself and know that your weaknesses and mistakes are not the full story of your life. Anyone can change if they are willing to make the effort, accepting that a positive life is not easily achieved. The positive has to be accepted and the negative has to be understood. 

There is Caymanian talent and ability. There is Caymanian expertise. We have knowledge and ambition, but for too long we have been quietly made to believe that we need to listen to others and wait for “trickling pennies” and not learn. For us to pull this country out of the shadows, we have to learn from our mistakes. Cayman has a pool of ideas. What we need is a way to combine the differing Cayman ideals and personalities into an ideology of true Caymanian betterment and progress. Not everyone has to agree, but what we need to agree on is that this path is not working. Things are getting worse and something substantial needs to be done about it. 

Instead of hoping for a handout from foreign investment, invest in the community. Community based projects such as neighbourhood markets or co-ops are a step in the right direction. However, any idea or notion goes for nothing, if we as individuals, cannot live less destructive and wasteful. We all make mistakes, but the decisions made after the mistakes is what makes the difference. Life is unforgiving and hard. We cannot expect the rich man to pick us up and save us. We have to have the pride to save ourselves. This will take a different and honest way of thought. 

Every country reaches a point in its history where it suffers and has to change for its survival. We are at this point and running out of time. For 11 years we have been tossed back and forth between lectures, rhetoric, rising crime and rising prices. We will not survive if this continues. In our hearts we know this but we are scared of change, fearful of the unknown. This is a natural reaction but we will never enjoy the fruits of our labours if we do not confront this fear and conquer it. 

James M. Bodden III