Finding balance

When I joined the board of directors of Cricket World Cup 2007, I met two men who were remarkable for the gentlemanly qualities they exuded so powerfully.

I use the word powerfully to emphasise the strength that lay within their courtesy, respect, kindness and thoughtfulness because those traits are often misguidedly represented as symbols of weakness. Those men -- Rawle Brancker and Stephen Alleyne -- have always stood out as true models of the kind of human I idealise.

Stephen, blessed with unmatched equanimity and a ripe intellect, returned his blessings pricelessly to the landscape he inhabited. His death confounded, for this was a healthy, fit, young man, refusing to be stressed by countless hurdles. He seemed to have found the balance necessary to live life as wholesomely as possible. How could he be gone?

It invoked a measure of reflection on the ways of life and living, and watching the massive turnout for his funeral, and reading the nature of the tributes, it struck me again that if we could know what people will remember about us, would we live differently?

I admit I have been heavily preoccupied with the question of finding the right balance in life. How do we integrate all the different aspects in proportions that suit our needs?

The more I talk to people at different stages, the more I am convinced that the earlier we can sift through the chaff and arrive at what is truly important to us, the more equipped we are to dust off the fripperies that distract us from being our true selves.

Life has become so complex that it is easy to get swept away with the demands of the immediate. The hustle to earn a living and the anxieties of parenting come at us every day with an intensity that makes it seem impossible to draw breath, far less take a glance at the world around us. Yet we need to feel the weight of our presence, we need to feel that we belong to this community of humans, or we trudge along, heads bowed, never having a moment to measure the value we can add or extract by being our best and true selves.

Stephen has left many marks on the region. Kensington Oval is one of the finest legacies possible. He was able to achieve what he did because he was also unflappable in his belief that he had the power to make a difference, and he didn't have to hammer anyone to prove his point.

The balance he found was remarkable because while he knew what he was up against, he didn't resort to pettiness to confront it. He sought to listen and learn and analyse information to achieve his goals.

It is this broad-mindedness and this broadness of knowledge that elevated him, and it is why I have been a perhaps tiresome preacher in the crusade to get people to understand the importance of lifelong learning. Discussing education and cricket is not simply about putting cricketers in a classroom and giving them certificates. It is about helping them to broaden their knowledge so they can make sound decisions and act on reason rather than rage.

Stephen had all these skills, and he did not acquire them by chance. He was also the beneficiary of much sound nurturing, and so he felt his value and he gave back richly to the society that had invested in him.

I suppose that is what I would like for our youth, a life like Stephen's, though he was one in a million.

My condolences to his family and the many mourners he left in his wake.

* This column first appeared in the Nation newspaper in Barbados. It is republished with permission.