I must admit I struggled with this message of Baillie Aaron at TED. I blogged it and then drafted it again, and then blogged it once more.
Why did I struggle with it because, as I know that I like it?
Happen, the struggle is because I still think of myself as an ex-prisoner after over thirty years, and I cannot blame society for that, after working within the criminal justice system for near on a decade and a half.
Happen, labelling doesnt help, but I seem to recall the saying, "It's easier to take the person out of prison, than it is to take the prison out of the person".
I'm a person, and a far better person than I was, with numberous positive labels, of which I'm proud, but having said that, ex-prisoner, ex-thief and ex- offender are labels that are never far from my own self identity.
Furthermore, I don't feel that I can blame society for those negative lablels, which I struggle to let go of.
In life I sometimes see good people who end up being corrupted, and then again other people who started of badly who have made good. In other word, "One a good person, [sometimes means] not always a good person". People can change for the better, and for the worse.
I'm glad that for me as a person, I followed through on a choice over thirty years ago, and can say, "Once a Thief, is not Alway's a Thief".
I like the following which I read on Adam Mac: Blogging Behind Bars. It was written by a samurai in Japan in the 1700s and it could well be entitled, "Once a Thief, is not Alway's a Thief".
“There was once a council considering the promotion of a certain man. The council members were at the point of deciding that promotion was useless because of the fact that the man had previously been involved in a drunken brawl. But someone said ‘If we were to cast aside every man who had made a mistake once, useful men could probably not be come by. A man who makes a mistake once will learn from it and be considerably more careful not to repeat it because of his repentance. I feel that he should be promoted.’
“Someone else then asked, ‘Will you guarantee him?’
“The man replied, ‘Of course I will’.
“The others then asked, ‘By what will you guarantee him?’
“And he replied, ‘I can guarantee him by the fact that he is a man who has erred once. A man who has never once erred has never once learnt, and is dangerous.’
“This said, the man was promoted.”
From ‘Hagakure’ by Yamamoto Tsunetomo
I'm glad that for me as a person, I followed through on a choice over thirty years ago, and can say, "Once a Thief, is not Alway's a Thief".
“There was once a council considering the promotion of a certain man. The council members were at the point of deciding that promotion was useless because of the fact that the man had previously been involved in a drunken brawl. But someone said ‘If we were to cast aside every man who had made a mistake once, useful men could probably not be come by. A man who makes a mistake once will learn from it and be considerably more careful not to repeat it because of his repentance. I feel that he should be promoted.’
“Someone else then asked, ‘Will you guarantee him?’
“The man replied, ‘Of course I will’.
“The others then asked, ‘By what will you guarantee him?’
“And he replied, ‘I can guarantee him by the fact that he is a man who has erred once. A man who has never once erred has never once learnt, and is dangerous.’
“This said, the man was promoted.”
From ‘Hagakure’ by Yamamoto Tsunetomo
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