I am a passionate believer in change. My whole professional
life was involved in making changes in behavior. Now that
we as a nation have become rude and surly, with very bad
manners, I am wondering where we have gone wrong.

Change can be taught. People can learn to accept differences
and other cultures. Children can be taught to be practical,
sensible, polite and tolerant adults. They can also be
taught to be empathetic and caring.

I blame fanaticism for many of the bad things in our lives.
Baptists hate Catholics, Catholics hate Muslims and all
religions hate agnostics and atheists. How about a little
tolerance for other beliefs and other life styles?

We have too lenient a view of undisciplined behavior even
though you can read the consequences of it in every newspaper.
This generation of children seems to be more unruly, more
impulsive, more violent and more depressed than the previous
one. This really discourages me when I think about the
future.

Change has to start with one individual at a time. We have
to be committed to help effect change in whatever way we can.