Be part of the solution

In the mailing lists in which I am member, I find an interesting habit. It is not rare to get emails that share only the negative sides of something, full of critics. For example, they complain about the corruption, the lack of teachers, the increasing number of children with malnutrition, and the scarcity of gas. But when I look for any practical solutions they may offer, I seldom find them. I am not sure whether this is a typical characteristic of Indonesian people, but I guess we won't make significant progress if all of us are used to sharing problems only, without smart solutions.

Instead I offer alternative habits as follow.

1. Get used to stating on your opinion that something is not good and must be changed. Many people might have taken it for granted and see it normal.
2. Don't just stop only pointing errors. Get used to presenting solutions which can be easily applied. Give samples of the phenomena you desire. Provide corrections to fix the errors.
3. In giving solutions, for Indonesian context, make it a habit to focus on our own circle of influence. For example, putting our hopes on the government may instead make us lose hope. We'd better think of practical things that we can do with our own hands.
4. Be part of the solution. Giving solutions is good, but the best thing is we contribute something practical to the solutions. For example, a clever child from a very poor family can not continue his study to high school. What we do on hearing this is that we propose a movement to raise funds to help the boy. Not only that, we give ourselves as part of the solution by giving some of our money to initiate the movement.

That's the solutions I suggest to the problem of being problem-oriented, not solution-oriented. It's up to you whether you wanna take it or not.

Talk does not cook rice.
-Chinese Proverb