School Shooting - What makes a person kill

On 23rd September 2008, 10 students were shot dead by Matti Saari who then turned the gun on himself. (http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gmPkjy3Rc56YqQQ1LYm_OfXgW5VwD93DDESG0) Reading the article above made me reflect on what is becoming to the human race.

A quick search on Google on “school shooting” revealed 1,780,000 results. I clicked on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_shooting and I would not be lying when I say that my jaw dropped. I extracted the following:

Mind you, these are just the recent incidents for USA. There are many other documented cases that are listed at the website above. Reading these statistics really made me think whether by the time I have children, would it be safe for me to send my kids to schools?

While I take profound comfort at the strict gun control laws in Malaysia (probably the only reason why there aren’t any school shooting incidents in my country) I cannot but worry whether it will be safe for me to send my kids to school by the time they are of school going age. I cannot remember with absolute certainty but I do recall reading in the newspapers that students are getting more unruly and violent.

But what intrigued me most was what makes a person kill? I would like to quote Tapio Varmola, principal of Seinajoki University of Applied Sciences who commented on Matti Saari:

"I personally feel that maybe there are too many silent young boys in Finland who are alone. The parents, the schools and the healthcare system should do something together with young boys".
(http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2008/9/25/worldupdates/2008-09-24T233624Z_01_NOOTR_RTRMDNC_0_-356358-1&sec=Worldupdates)

If silence can drive a person to kill, then I believe a possible solution to stop these killings would be to talk to as many people as possible. What do you think?

The corrective actions for us all is to play our part by reaching out to as many people as possible, regardless of gender, race, age and etc. What I mean is – START TALKING & START SAVING LIVES!

The truth about promises - how to keep them

Promises are like babies: easy to make, hard to deliver. ~Author Unknown

Half the promises people say were never kept, were never made. ~Edgar Watson Howe

The best way to keep one's word is not to give it. ~Napoleon Bonaparte

For every promise, there is price to pay. ~Jim Rohn

Promises are like crying babies in a theatre, they should be carried out at once. ~Norman Vincent Peale

We must not promise what we ought not, lest we be called on to perform what we cannot. ~Abraham Lincoln

Promise is defined as (http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=promises&sub=Search+WordNet&o2=&o0=1&o7=&o5=&o1=1&o6=&o4=&o3=&h=000000)
Noun
S: (n) promise (a verbal commitment by one person to another agreeing to do (or not to do) something in the future)
S: (n) promise, hope (grounds for feeling hopeful about the future) "there is little or no promise that he will recover"
Verb
S: (v) promise, assure (make a promise or commitment)
S: (v) promise (promise to undertake or give) "I promise you my best effort"
S: (v) predict, foretell, prognosticate, call, forebode, anticipate, promise (make a prediction about; tell in advance) "Call the outcome of an election"
S: (v) promise (give grounds for expectations) "The new results were promising"; "The results promised fame and glory"

In view of so many broken promises, especially in light of the recent financial market meltdown in USA, can we ever trust someone who has broken their promises? It has become a norm for companies to over promise but under deliver; they promised something that they know couldn’t be delivered. For me, I would think that promises should only be made after careful consideration and must be delivered at all costs instead of saying it for the sake of saying it resulting in the failure of delivering the promise. One of the most important lessons that I have learnt is to under promise but over deliver; it simply means giving more than what was promised. End of the day, everyone is selling something, be it a product or service (in the form of a promise; this product / service can do this and this and this etc).

Using the financial market meltdown in USA as an example, can you imagine how does the employees, who are laid off, feel now that they are jobless and that they retirement plans are wrecked due to the fact that the companies that they have been slogging for numerous years have filed for bankruptcy? With this image in mind, how important it is for us to keep our promises?

Of the promises that I listed above, I do not agree with Napoleon Bonaparte’s way of keeping a promise. I think the best way to keep promises is to understand the implications of being able to deliver them and the implications of not being able to deliver them.

What do you think?

The truth about values

Enron filed for bankruptcy 2nd December 2001 leading to the massive plunge of its share prices from a high of more than USD90.00 to USD0.50. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enron_scandal)

The main reason for Enron’s fall is no doubt the Arthur Andersen accounting firm (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Andersen)

The recent US financial meltdown is truly a déjà vu experience because history is repeating itself.

In the wake of the Enron scandal, we have the Bear Stearns fiasco (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bear_Stearns), Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Lehman Brothers and last but not least AIG. The massive losses posted by companies in the US financial market has directly prompted the Bush administration’s current proposal to spend USD700 billion capital injection to prop their financial market from crashing. At the same time, the FBI is investigating these firms for possible mortgage fraud (http://money.cnn.com/2008/09/23/news/companies/fbi_finance/index.htm?cnn=yes).

To the best of my knowledge, corporations / companies are inanimate entities. It is the employees that makes or breaks corporations / companies. This fact leads me to question myself: what is it that made the above giant corporations to suffer massive financial losses? Surely the answer cannot be luck (or lack of it) or they were at the wrong place at the wrong time for the wrong reasons. I believe the answer for the above scandals is simple: the corporations failed mainly because of wrong values.

Values is defined as (http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=values)
S: (n) values (beliefs of a person or social group in which they have an emotional investment (either for or against something)) "he has very conservatives values"

The basis for the massive financial market meltdown is US is largely blamed on the subprime mortgage crisis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subprime_mortgage_crisis). In my opinion, that is not the real reason. The real reason behind the US financial market meltdown is the values of the employees in the corporations have ‘evolved’ drastically to the extent that they are no longer recognizable. Now why in the world would I say that?

Let me ask a simple question: who wouldn’t want lots of money? As corporations are inanimate entities, the financial health of corporations falls into the jurisdiction of the company’s board of directors. I think I would not be wrong to say that the word ‘directors’ was derived from ‘direct’ as in to provide directions. The biggest pre-requisite for directors should be the values that they subscribe to. If the directions provided by a director does not have good values embedded in it, chances are the outcome would be disastrous, as is evident in the financial meltdown in U.S.

Coming back to my earlier question: who wouldn’t want lots of money? Making lots of money isn’t difficult at all, that is if a person doesn’t subscribe to good values. Plenty of career options available for people who subscribe to dishonesty, selfishness and blatant disregard to rules / laws. But most end up behind bars. The truth about values is simple: good values will prevail over bad values. For a person who subscribe to honesty, selflessness and abides by rules / laws, it may be prove to take a longer time to accumulate lots of money but at the very least, the chances of them ending up behind bars are very low.

The corrective action = please educate and instil good values in children, relatives, friends, community, colleagues and everyone that you know in order to prevent any undesirable circumstances.