Enough with the bank bashing - we get it and we are trying to change - are you?

Yes, I wanted to get your attention, it's true given recent history and the continuing current climate, that's a provocative title for an article written by someone working in an industry widely accepted as deserving of public anger and from many, disdain.

I don't expect you to feel sorry for banks, we need to change, and it's good news that we have so many new financial technology firms bringing new opportunities into this space.

But what I do ask, if you are the person this article is directed towards, for a brief opening of your mind and heart to at least hear or feel from a different perspective.

If you still feel 'well so what?' after reading this...then you're of course free to reinstate your view, I thank you for your consideration and genuinely wish you well.

So when I refer to the 'current climate' above, I am referring to the jaded mistrust of institutions, top down control, hierarchy, information and power being in the hands of the few, coupled with the 'difficult to forgive' lack of apparent understanding and care for the more vulnerable in our society.

Ever since the financial crisis I have felt uneasy with the strong and polarising reactions and positions that we as a society have taken in relation to our rather ancient institutions, as if we as individuals, living in or reacting to that society, have nothing to do with those institutions or responsibility for what has happened, or have in no way benefitted from them leading up to the present time.

It seems to me that we continually somehow fool ourselves into having this existential argument with a perceived 'something' out there, that has been 'doing this to me' or to society, as though solving societies deeply complex problems are easily solved by saying 'we suck', 'let's get rid of this, that or them!'

We thought it would be good to get rid of some dictators in the middle east, and by taking this binary, black and white perspective e.g. this is good, that is bad... we have as a result been in part responsible for untold suffering and destruction of people's basic ways of life. Shocker right! And for what? Our opinions about how someone else's life should be somewhere else?

Not only is simplifying complexity dangerous, but our persistent polarised ranting and raging serves as a huge distraction, which causes us to miss a rather poignant and eternal truth, that if we were honest enough about our own failings it might not be so difficult to see and at the very least give space for another's perspective, or way of living.

Are you not tired of 'raging against the machine'? By the machine I mean politicians, bankers, religious practitioners, corporates, rich people, the elite, immigrants, racists, terrorists and all the other labels that exist out there?

I am. Because I know that the only place I can find a solution that doesn't involve endless existential discussions on what's wrong with Society and the world, is by pointing the finger squarely back at myself.

Why?

Well, so that I don't forget I am a micro manifestation, (being influenced on a daily basis by people's opinions dressed up as facts, by 'likes', 'loves' and the 'angry faces' of social media into one of the conforming masses of convenient arm chair commentators making myself an active participant) of a macro problem.

Let's remember that while we 'feel' justified to 'like' this comment, make that comment, reply on this blog with all our innermost irritation and frustration at the system.....that 'we are that system' and we will continue to manifest that macro problem until we we all collectively AND collaboratively decide we want to be and do something different.

This task is going to need all of us, and by all of us I mean 'all' of us, because while we are ranting away, we are ignoring the fact that we have the luxury of ranting against a system that while imperfect provides a standard of living and level of security that lets face it, most of us take for granted. We have the luxury of being able to write and comment on articles from our computers, phones, tablets etc.....when the rest of the world can only look at our way of life from afar from their deeply inconvenient lives, made more so by our need to consume and their collective decisions to risk their lives to cross unforgiving expanses of water to provide their families with what it is they perceive we have, and without that sense of entitled fury.

It's fine to be angry, go for it, be angry, be frustrated, don't accept the status quo, allow yourself to be kicked into action, but lets try and direct that frustration in a collectively productive direction which recognises, that if winning at this game called business means only focussing on the bottom line and competing, while ignoring the environment and those underserved by our local and global societies - then we are losing, we will lose and we will deserve it.

Enough is enough. It's too easy to demonise and forget that ultimately we all need to be facing in the same direction when it comes to changing our world for the better.

So what about it? Anyone up for joining me in genuinely changing ourselves, to allow the space in ourselves to feel more, so we can let more into that beautiful space for the sake of something more important than the celebration of collective mini grievances - like our fellow brothers and sisters and the only home we have - earth?