dailyprompt – Page 7 – John Vincent

Daily writing prompt

What brings you peace?

The mind can be a rambling and untamed animal that runs riot with anxieties and imagined troubles. Is it possible to have too much imagination? Inventing situations, dramatic and comedic, and letting them loose by the handful. All this spent energy bearing scant connection to reality. A blizzard like information overload in our digital age.

Peace is sending that cerebral chaos away. Floating in a harmonious relation with the real world that’s going on around, here and now. Being in the moment, as some people say. How to get there on a busy day? Easy. Take time out in a pleasant space. Just close your eyes and listen. Listen hard. Different bird songs unjumble themselves. Distant conversations, although mumbles, seem distinct. Wind through the leaves becomes audible. After a couple of minutes of concentration, past untamed hours vanish into lost memories.

That is the public servants who uphold the best of the public service ethos. Part of that is to work for the public good without expecting great admiration or fame. In the UK, the Seven Principles of Public Life (also known as the Nolan Principles) are a good start. Often mentioned when things go wrong, they are a distillation of what’s expected or, at least, hoped for when encountering a public servant.

I have known people who have demonstrated, in their every day working lives the best of these principles, and more. To balance this finding, I have known people for whom any of these seven would have been a struggle.

Prefect people, if such a term can be used, are not common place. Even they have off days, when they stray from the path that they have set themselves.

Having done a fair number of audits of organisations over the years, the message to take is that great public service is often not what’s done when someone is looking, it’s what’s done when no one is looking.

Daily writing prompt

What profession do you admire most and why?