Walking the talk and not just blabbering on.
This is the very first blog post for The Buzz Mcr, so it's a bit of a landmark. Not to get too carried away but we have organised a street party with sandwiches, crisps and shandy. Social distancing will of course be respected.
We thought we should kick off with something a bit inspirational to try and set the appropriate tone, and also because we are only just starting out on this journey and we need a bit of self-encouragement.
There are loads of sayings and cliches that people use when they want to try and inspire you to do something. People will quote all kinds of spiritual and philosophical people in the process. Buddha, Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Mother Theresa, and Geoff from the pub is especially good at offering late night drunken profundity and profanity.
Lao Tzu is the top dog in this arena though, besides writing the spiritual masterpiece, The Tao Te Ching, he is most famous for his quote,"The journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step." It's a shame he didn't trademark it, as he would probably be comfortably retired by now, if he hadn't been dead for 2500 years that is.
Then there is another famous quote that goes something like, "You don't know a man truly until you have walked a mile in his shoes." I like this quote because it encourages us to be more compassionate and understanding of our fellow man, and it gives me a warm, tingly feeling inside.
There is another version of this quote which I prefer though, I believe it is originally attributed to comedian Steve Martin. He said, "Before you criticise a man, walk a mile in his shoes. That way you'll be a mile away and you'll have his shoes."
That one feels a bit more Mancunian to me, especially if the shoes were sneakers, Adidas Gazelle's at that - the blue ones with the purple stripes.
The gist of all of that talk though is that you have to start somewhere, and that's what we are doing. We are putting one front in front of the other each and every day, and by doing that we’re starting to get somewhere.
The other point is that you should be good to the people around you. A characteristic that this city has in bucketloads. But, we can always do more, and that's also part of our mission.
Right, time to get this party started. *pours some Tizer into a plastic cup and pulls on a party popper.