UK Social Welfare Statistics: Behind the Graphs and Labels. It's Not What You Think.

What if I told you that navigating the UK's social welfare system is a journey filled with unexpected challenges and invaluable lessons? I don't need to. Most Brits already know. 
This episode takes you inside my recent experience at the Job Centre as I tackle the complexities of migrating to Universal Credit. Despite the limitations imposed by non-disclosure agreements on frontline staff, I share the importance of being prepared and the role online resources play in guiding you through this complicated system. Alongside this, you'll hear about my personal journey from South Africa to the UK, the various jobs I've held, and the significance of self-reliance and hard work.
I'm unpacking my response to listener comments from the last podcast about Preparing to migrate to Universal Credits. I look at the complexities behind the statistics on unemployment in South Africa without a Dole (social welfare system). With a shocking 59-60% of young people aged 15 to 24 out of work, I Look behind the layers of these statistics. 
From the way corruption decides who gets grants in South Africa, grants meant to support the most vulnerable. There are human stories behind these numbers, including the impact of affirmative action policies and the turn to crime for many South Africans.  The struggle for survival without stable income and adequate infrastructure in SA is laid bare. By looking behind the statistics in both SA and the UK's own social welfare numbers, we highlight the importance of understanding that we CANNOT compare the two countries. 
Finally, I explore the intricacies of the UK's social welfare system, discussing the numbers of claimants of various benefits such as Universal Credit, Job Seekers Allowance, and Disability Living Allowance. The numbers don't stack up. I look at where I found the UK Government's statistics and why they aren't comprehensive enough. 
While expressing gratitude for the system, we can't ignore its political and economic challenges, emphasizing the need for responsible budgeting. My conversation also tackles the stigma surrounding benefit claimants, advocating for a broader understanding of the statistics. The people behind the numbers and one size DOESN'T fit all. Labels are undeserved and unhelpful.
I dive into the complexities of PIP assessments for individuals with autism and other disabilities, emphasizing the need for a more empathetic, solution-oriented approach to empower people beyond societal labels. Join me as I advocate for dignity, self-reliance, and a deeper empathy for the real lives behind the statistics.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Universal Credit Migration and Self-Reliance
• 10:14 Survival Without Social Welfare Systems
• 20:19 The Complexity of Social Welfare Systems
• 30:59 Empowering Individuals Beyond Labels

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

following the last podcast migration to universal credit I went into the job center. I asked if I could speak to somebody concerning the migration and how it affects people and if they have any advice or input for people going through the process, what they could do to prepare for it, get their idea on it, because they're the people who see people every day. But I was referred to sit down and wait to speak to an advisor. So I did. It wasn't five minutes, it wasn't a long wait at all. The lady called me to the desk. I asked her. Her response was before we delve into that, let's start properly. Shall we excuse me a minute as I refer to my notes because I didn't want to forget anything. It was all important, especially because today I'm going to be answering viewer and listener questions Right before we go any further.

Speaker 1: 0:54

Welcome to Escaping the Doll with Cindy. I talk and share all things self-reliance and my journey on escaping the doll, which is the social welfare system in the UK. It is a glorious day out there today, not as warm and beautiful as the rest of the week has been, it's cooler, but there's blue skies, there's sunshine and I'm feeling pretty good. Let's actually take two of the podcast. The last one I did just did not want to upload. Let's start again, shall we? Um, and I don't want to take up too much of your time on this, I'd like to take a brief moment quickly to say a very big thank you to all of the viewers, the listeners, the readers, especially to last podcast, because it makes a huge difference to have comments and thoughts and experiences to respond to for the next video. So I really appreciate your feedback on everyone so that it helped. I'd also like to take a moment to remind you about my book escaping the delta blue garden cottage that you will find in the links below. The book is about my journey to finding a way to get freedom from the system and regain our self-reliance, freedom and dignity. Let's get back to the show, shall we? There's quite a bit to go through.

Speaker 1: 2:14

Right back to the job center and speaking to the advisor at the desk where people who are on universal credits or any other unemployment benefit go for their work-focused interviews and other whatever else it is they need to do at the job centre. So, asking the lady about the migration to Universal Credit, I was told that unfortunately they're not allowed to give any interviews or talk to anyone in any public capacity. Because I was honest and upfront and transparent. I said I was looking for topics to cover and answer viewer questions for the podcast. But she said no, they're not allowed to talk to anybody in any public capacity. They have actually signed non-disclosure agreements, which I thought was absolutely ridiculous, because surely it would help them For people to go to them prepared. I don't know, it's something that that's a whole other topic. And I she was very nice, she was polite, she was not mean or anything like that. She's just she wished me well and good luck and I graciously accepted the farewell and returned it to her in like manner.

Speaker 1: 3:27

It's nuts that they can't talk to you or anybody else. I mean they should know, shouldn't they, being the frontline people who deal with folk who are claimants to benefits, what people are going through, what kind of issues come up, what, how people come to them unprepared or in dire need and situations. But no, you're on your own, except, of course, for folk all over youtube podcasts, blogs, the lot. There are so many people out there who try to help as well, who give you lots of guidance on all things self-reliance, whether that be to do with the Dole or not. So I hope that I could at least give you some feedback or some information that would be helpful to you. Please don't forget to let me know in the comments. I'm going to refer now to excuse me as I go back and forth to notes, because I don't want to miss anything.

Speaker 1: 4:27

Notes, first of all. Somebody noted obviously my accent is not exactly British. It is a South African accent, even though I can't hear my accent anymore, unless I listen to a recording of my voice. So editing is a bit freaky because I can hear my voice in a different accent. I can't hear it. Other people can. Uh, yep, well spotted.

Speaker 1: 4:50

I was born in South Africa and raised there, but by the time I was 18, 19, I immigrated to the UK with my British husband. All of his family were here, all of mine were in South Africa, and we lived in England for a good many years before moving to Wales. He had a job. Within the first few days of arriving in the UK I had to wait for leave to remain, with permission to work, and within a year, um, and as soon as my daughter was born and a few months old, I was in work as well. We worked. That was just where we, where we, where I was brought up, where he was brought up. We, you work. That's just the way it was. Um, because there is no nhs or dss or department for work and pensions in south af. Well, not in the same way. We have our social welfare system. That's just what you do. You work, and we did Within five I think it was five years later as soon as we could afford it financially.

Speaker 1: 5:55

I naturalised as a British citizen, so here I am. I am a British citizen with an accent. There you go. That explains that bit. Accent there you go. That explains that bit.

Speaker 1: 6:08

Over the many years that we've been here, we've had various jobs, between working in a chip shop, factories, home department stores, all sorts. I have worked as a supervisor in a hardware store On night shift. I've worked in factories. Hubby has worked in factories. So it's not as if we came over as immigrants dependent on the system. Not at all. These things sometimes happen, though, over time, on and off for some people, and maybe never for others. Accountants are very lucky if that was your case. So I hope that gives you a little bit more information about myself and where I'm coming from as far as this topic is concerned, it's been 34 years since I've lived in South Africa, so I am not qualified to talk about the situation there, but I still have all my family there and Acquaintances and friends who still live there, so I can get up-to-date information, especially since South Africa is not quite the place to be able to find accurate statistics.

Speaker 1: 7:20

A listener commented about the 40% unemployment in Johannesburg and the fact that South Africa has no dole or social welfare system, which is true. They don't have a system like that. There are some grants but we'll go into that in a little bit more detail in a moment and I think the implication was that if they can do without a dole with that situation of unemployment, then surely we can too, that the doll shouldn't be the first port of call. Perfectly valid thought, and I can totally understand where you're coming from. First of all, there's a lot more behind statistics. Okay, let's have a look first at some of these. I'm going to read off some notes that I made, because I said I don't want to get these things wrong. Johannesburg is only one city and surrounding areas of a much bigger country, which is much bigger than the UK.

Speaker 1: 8:16

I checked an article from the South African Reserve Bank from their quarterly bulletin. If you look in the show notes, you might find that it is quarterly bulletin number 312, june 2024. South Africa's official unemployment rate increased further from 32.1% in the fourth quarter of 2023 to 32.9% in the first quarter of 2024 due to the significant increase in the number of unemployed persons. Official statistics is hugely inaccurate and, because of the amount of corruption in the country and a lot of manipulated figures and they ignore a whole bunch of things, they don't take all of the details into consideration. Before we go comparing one country to another, it's important to have a look at further instances and situations in a place so that we can get a better picture before we make comparisons.

Speaker 1: 9:13

As far as South Africa goes, there's statistics for youth unemployment, and youth means 15 years to 24 years. In the UK it's 16 years and over, which I think is crazy 15 years old, expecting a 15 year old to be in full-time work but then I was that age and working as well. It's just something we did even in high school. I had a part-time job in the spa supermarket in South Africa. Yeah, I worked for them on the tills as a 15 year old. I was crazy, but I did it. I had my own pocket money and I bought my own toiletries and my own outings paid for. So I was learning to be independent at a very young age. And that's just what you do in South Africa the soonest you are legally allowed to work, you had a job. Whatever that might be, it was not a good experience. There were things that went on that shouldn't have from employers, bad behavior, but I won't go into that.

Speaker 1: 10:14

Still, as far as South Africa goes, youth unemployment, which means ages 15 to 24 years old, stands at 59 to 60 percent. So 59 to 60 percent of all youth are unemployed. It's one of the largest groups in their society. Um, you can check out trending economic south africa for more details. But again, those figures, they don't make sense because I'll explain it more to you. The stats also say that the labor force rose to 25 million, but there are over 70 million in the population there, so that's a lot more than 32 percent. I mean 70 million. Does that count children and elderly of not working age as well? So it would be interesting to find out the statistics for working age people in the population, but I still think that 32% is completely inaccurate.

Speaker 1: 11:07

Yes, as to having a social welfare system, they don't have one. But there are grants available, but they're shocking and a few people who do qualify might not even get them, not because they're not poor enough to qualify, but because of the corruption. And what do you call it? People that are not capable of doing the job, for instance, employed parents okay, I'm reading notes again might get 350 rand. I'm not sure if that's per month, if just for comparison, to know what that actually looks like. Um, a pensioner there which is over 65, might be able to get 1,800 rands per month. Now that might sound like a lot, but that equates as of this week maybe not today, but as when I checked the other day. Equates to 75 pounds, 60, 75 pounds, 60 per month, and the cost of living there is also through the roof. So you be a pensioner and try to live off £75.60 per month even in this country, and it's impossible.

Speaker 1: 12:15

Okay, that's not enough even to survive on, let alone be comfortable, especially when the public health system in South Africa might be free at hospitals, but the system is so poor. The treatment is basic of basic. In some places I've heard of people having to take their own toilet roll, their own bedding and pillows, things like that, because it's just not supplied at the hospital. And then you have to survive on the pennies that you get, and not everybody will get that grant again, the situation is not ideal and I wouldn't want to be living there. You couldn't pay me to go back there at all, so I can understand why a lot of people, if they can afford it and have the money, try to get out. Unless you have a very good private medical aid system, you will get the most basic of basic.

Speaker 1: 13:08

How then, thinking about just those few little details, looking deeper behind the figures, do people in South Africa survive with no social welfare system if you're out of work and a very poor health system? Well, I can tell you about as far as going without. You have enough money to tide you over in savings till you find another job. Good luck with that one. I can't go into too much detail about that, but affirmative action is a government policy there.

Speaker 1: 13:43

If you're over a certain age, your chances of getting a job is virtually none If you are lucky enough to have wealthy family who can support you while you try to get back on your feet, but they're not going to put up with a scrounger, dependent on them for very long because it's a very difficult place to be and have to support family without much backup input. So you're going to have to contribute anyway. So you're going to have to get a job. You might not have any of those fortunate situations of having people you can rely on until you get back up on your feet the rest of the society who don't have those skills sometimes skills and abilities to be able to run their own businesses. If you're out of a job, you start your own business, but that is very tricky because of the corruption there's. There are lots of laws that that make working for yourself very difficult. But if you have the skills and the resources, you could do that everybody else.

Speaker 1: 14:46

How people survive is by crime. Face it out. We're human beings and when you're desperate and there is no other way out, generally because of a scarcity, mindset and fear and greed and selfishness, people turn to crime. People do illegal mining in towns and villages. Roads are collapsing because of it, so infrastructure is diabolical. There's also burglaries and their associated evils, people stealing from homes, cars and businesses and, even worse, there are kidnappings for ransom and to fuel the sex trade, and that includes the kidnap of innocents.

Speaker 1: 15:29

That is as far as I'm going to go into that topic and subject. I'm not going to go any further. The price I think that's the price of plunging your society into that state of corruption, with no support and infrastructure. It is a downward spiral that takes your society into a very, very horrible place, very horrible place. So I am not going to praise the fact that there are so many unemployed and yet they survive without a doll, because the details and the facts behind those figures is much more complicated and complex. It's not what it is on the surface. Behind all the statistics, behind the headlines, are human beings and people who are either their best selves in the worst situation or their worst selves in the worst situation.

Speaker 1: 16:20

Um, there's no, we can't compare. We're in a completely different situation, a completely different culture. It's, it's not. It's not quite the same, even though we have our issues here in the uk. I just wanted to give some um context to why it's not quite the same, even though we have our issues here in the UK. I just wanted to give some context to why it's not so reliable to take statistics from other places without looking at the deeper sides of things, and it's exactly the same here. Actually, we have in the UK the I've mentioned this, I think, in the last podcast and in my book and in many other blogs and videos the societal stereotype of typing of people who rely on the social welfare system.

Speaker 1: 17:04

It has always been that way. The narrative has always been that people who are on the dole are lazy, they're scroungers, they milk the system, they don't want to work and so on and so on. And every single time going back to the migration issue, with universal credit and other benefits being done away with, every time there's a social welfare reform. I don't know if it's timed that way, deliberately or not. I'm not going to go into my conspiracy theories, but every single time we go through a social welfare reform and they do come periodically there are the usual TV programs and all sorts coming out to do with labeling of people, like the Rab C Nesbitt comedy, which is a caricature of the situation of people who don't work and live on the dole. And then you have the the old bread program, the tv program that was also a sitcom series, and then we had the reality tv, benefit street type programs. They all come out as soon out of necessity, be living on the dole or receiving some kind of benefits. You will never see the people in those programs who don't smoke, who don't drink alcohol, who don't live it up going out. They don't go ever on holidays, they don't have expensive cars. They don't have that kind of lifestyle as well.

Speaker 1: 18:39

Another comment that was made was about the amount of job vacancies not filled in the UK. I'd also like to put another perspective on that, coming from experience in the past, long before Universal Credit actually came in, but since then, other people being on this um, on this journey as well, and having to log in to their accounts every day to find work online, a lot of the jobs listed in those statistics and online don't actually exist. Either they've been filled or taken down, but the listings have not been changed, or you could apply for work and the job's already gone because they're legally required to put it up for people to see, but they've already filled the positions. That's one to bear in mind as well, and some of those jobs might not be ones that guarantee your self-reliance or freedom from being able to live completely self-reliant without depending on top-up benefits. If you want your independence, you want a full-time job or a job that's going to pay the bills, and many of those jobs do not pay the bills or they do not allow for families who might be a single parent and have to work around school holidays because they certainly could not afford child care on their wages. So I think that's another perspective to consider when thinking about the job vacancies situation. We continue to find other ways. So I just wanted to be clear that just because you see the statistics, just because you see the programs on the telly, it doesn't mean that's exactly what goes on. There are lots of people who do not behave like that as well there. There's more behind the scenes that you then you get to see.

Speaker 1: 20:19

Yeah, I just wanted to put some perspective on that idea and move on to some more statistics that might further help. I did go on to the govuk website and asked for the statistics for the people on benefits in the UK where the, where they offered the explanations and the statistics for answering my question and had a few links in there as well of different graphs and things, and it also had a link to um, stat explore, which is statistics company that provide the government with their statistics. I looked, I clicked on the link and I signed up for an account where you can joe public can also sign up for account free to be able to use that data for research or whatever else you want to do between the, the govuk, the office of national statistics, the house of commons library and stat. Explore the figures. There's a load of figures and tables and graphs and all sorts and they can be very confusing, but there are more than 10 different types of benefits. If you go on to the govuk website and type in how many people are on benefits in the uk 2024, then it'll start giving you all the information. You'll come up with a graph that tells you what the proportions of the benefits are.

Speaker 1: 21:48

The biggest benefit that people claim as far as numbers of people is universal credit. Right the way all the way down to the bottom, and you will be surprised that the fewest people claiming two of the benefits are job seekers, and income support are the smallest numbers of people claiming those. And then it goes all the way up to the universal credit. In between are all the pension credits, the tax credits, the housing benefits, the disability living allowance, which is the disability payments for people who are over a certain age, an elderly, disabled person or under 16 who are children of disability. So they get DLA and disability living allowance and then all of the other disabled people have to apply for and qualify for personal independence payments, which is PIP.

Speaker 1: 22:42

But there are some benefits. The numbers are confusing as well on those because there are people on universal credits who also get, as part of the universal credits, housing benefit. They might get personal independence payments. They might get employment support allowance type supplements. Those are being done away with anyway, but they are the. Those numbers cover over where there is one household that receive awards from maybe two or three of the benefits listed. So the numbers might be this. It's deceiving. How can I explain it? Say you get employment support allowance, housing benefit and personal independence payments. It's one household but there's three different benefits. But they have separate numbers for all of those that don't reflect that those numbers involve maybe one household having two or three or maybe even one of the benefits. So again, those numbers and they don't stipulate that in the explanations and the summaries. They don't say that. They don't give you those explanations of those benefits.

Speaker 1: 23:51

You've got to read behind the statistics talking about the need for social welfare. I I think and I feel that I am so grateful that we live in a country where, at the moment, there is support for for people who are in dire need. I am not going to go into the politics and discussions about people who land on our land here, come in and expect and demand that they get given all of these things immediately, way more than citizens of this country get and have to qualify for, who normally have to have worked and contributed or have to meet certain requirements, required qualifications for being able to receive some of those not just given on demand. But that's all I'm saying about that. I'm not going into any more detail than that. That's not what this is about. This is about being grateful that, for the time being, we do have a system where, if you are in dire need, you could get the help.

Speaker 1: 24:59

It's not always because they try to make it as unattractive a prospect as possible, make it as difficult as possible, because it is. I can understand. When I first saw those figures, when I first saw the table of how many benefits there are and how many claimants there are, my heart just went. Oh my days. That was shocking. Oh my days. It was very frightening. I can totally understand. I can see how the authorities, the government, might look at those figures and go we can't do this. This cannot go on. This is an expense. There's no money. Well, again, there are politics there as well. I believe that statistics are there for the purpose of polls, for votes, for manipulating public views, and so I don't trust statistics.

Speaker 1: 25:57

But I understand the necessity of it when it comes to budgeting. After all, when I do my budget at home, I check what we've got, what we need. I've spoken to you about how I budget before and I check if there are anything unnecessary I can get rid of. That's an expense that's not necessary when things are tight so that I could build up reserves again. So I totally understand the basics of a budget and the principles, the logical principles of spending less than you get in so that you could always be in a positive financial situation. I understand that and I understand how scary these figures can look.

Speaker 1: 26:34

But at the same time, there is the behind the scenes things. Just as much as the labels placed on people on the dollar, undeserved on the whole, there is also the behind the scenes expenses and spending in places higher up that really should not be there, don't need to be there, and if they were to curb those spendings and expenses then we would not have many of the situations financially we have in the UK or any government anywhere in the world. Yeah, they don't have money for the most essential basics for the society, but they have for things that do not build society. In fact, they break society. Priorities are a bit screwed up and Joe, public is manipulated again to turn a blind eye to the negative and hyper-focus on the vilifying of those in society who don't always deserve the label. There are I know there are. There are those who feed the stereotype and confirm the labels.

Speaker 1: 27:51

But again, as it's easier for us to blanket label everybody, oh, while I went down the rabbit hole of checking out all the statistics and the policies and plans for how they're going to be dealing with personal independence payments and migrating to universal credit and talking about disabled people, people, um, there was also one very inspirational listener who commented, and I'm so grateful that she did, because she reminds us that there are many disabled people who do not claim benefits, who continue to work even though they're disabled, even though their work results in very, very poor wages, but they choose to keep their independence and self-reliance and their freedom, and they are fortunate enough to be able to do that. Some people are fortunate enough to have the skills to be self-employed or stay in work even though they're disabled. There are lots of different types of disability. They're not all the same and it's not reasonable to expect somebody who has the skills and ability to do that with somebody who is profoundly disabled or who has no mental capacity to be able to do that, who has no ability to work on technology or online or work with people. I don't think it's right to class every disabled person in the same category and that every disabled person can work.

Speaker 1: 29:31

I'm sure that there are some things that people can do and it's important for us all to do, whatever situation we're in, to do as much as we possibly can for our own self-reliance and our own well-being our own financial well-being as well. But then there are very many people who don't have the support to be able to figure out what it is that they can do, because there's nobody out there to say what jobs there are suited for conditions we've had in the past. We've had companies like Remploy that was awful, I remember them and we have play the Shaw Trust, which was much better, and then we have quite a few more now, I think as well. If you go on to the Disability Rights UK website, they have a lot of information on there. I do hope that that would be helpful to you if you're in that situation. I also, through that, found the government's proposals or consultation on how to deal with getting disabled people into work. They will be given a job coach, so to speak, or an employment or personal advisor. They are supposed to help people find jobs that they can do that are suitable for their conditions. I certainly hope so. I would love to be optimistic on that, but history and experience just puts a dampener on that one for me. I'm sorry.

Speaker 1: 30:59

I want to see evidence, especially when it comes to people with autism, and then the oh my goodness. There's another lady I'll put a link to her youtube channel who talks about the, the pip um assessments, and because she helps people to be able to fill in their PIP forms, because she knows it so well, because it's very complicated, it's difficult, and if you're not capable or you don't have the support or the ability to to fill in these forms or deal with appeals or anything like that. It's a devastating situation. The system is a very cold, number based kind of system. It doesn't take into consideration the very the differences between different people and how conditions separately affect people's everyday lives. So she helps them to be able to maneuver that system, not to milk the system, but to accept and learn what is due. And you know she, she doesn't mince her words. There are situations she thinks no, it's not appropriate, it's not applicable for people to do that. So she helps people cope cope with the intricacies of that process.

Speaker 1: 32:22

I totally agree with and support agencies who help people properly, support people into work that is appropriate for them to find their freedom and dignity and their self-reliance. I am 100 for that. Experience just puts a dampener on on history, though let's hope that it's improved by now. Every time around something happens. Hopefully there are improvements. So let's hope this time around these are improvements.

Speaker 1: 32:50

There are loads of different, complex reasons why people have to depend on social welfare, not always um, as cut and shut as people make it out to be. There's other people as well, like the disabled person who works. There are non-disabled people who have jobs, who work hard, do all the hours they can, but their money still doesn't pay the bills, not even the necessities, and they have to ask for or apply for top-up benefits like housing benefit, like income support which would that be? Universal credit? Anybody who needs support now automatically, first things first, go on to universal credit. None of the others you will get that. You will have to apply for that first. Not all benefits are for people who don't work. There are people who do work. It's another thing that doesn't always show in the summary of the benefits numbers and statistics that some people are working and they still have to rely on benefits. So just remember that as well when we are labeling and classing and tearing down people partially or completely, without knowing the full details of the individual people's lives.

Speaker 1: 33:58

Psychology plays a big role and I think for the very many people I am fortunate to be able to have access to the internet, to have access to skills. Some of my upbringing and, having come from a background where you work, you do to get all you can for your education and you work even if your family situation or your finances don't stretch to universities or college. You get the best education you can with what you've got and you work on that and you get as as good a job as you possibly can and you, you frame your character in such a way that you are employable. That is the way we're brought up. Yes, a lot of people here might not have that benefit. A lot of people there didn't have that benefit, otherwise they wouldn't have the situation they're in now. They're not. They don't. They haven't been given those tools in their life experience. So a lot of people don't know that they have other options.

Speaker 1: 34:57

Some people have been limited, not by those situations, but because of society labeling them. Because you see a youth in a hoodie and jogging bottoms on a bicycle, you presume that they're one of those drug dealers that you see riding around dealing drugs on their bicycles, in their hoodies and covered faces. And you presume that that's what they are because they're a youth, when in fact that youth might be doing all he possibly can to gain a very good education, but he's trying not to draw too much attention to himself in a society, culture of the generation, where you might be a target if you look different. But because they look the same, we label them the same. That's the danger with labels, that's the danger with typecasting people. We make presumptions about where they're from what they do, what they know, how they live, and then we make it difficult for them to access opportunities because they wouldn't want those opportunities. So we don't show them the opportunities. They might not be able to see the opportunities because they're not shown them. So I, personally, I try to refrain from making judgments about people. I try to refrain from putting labels on people based on appearances or statistics, because we don't see behind them. That's what I want this podcast to, to reflect. That's what I want this podcast to get across to people is that there are people, human beings and individual circumstances behind the statistics and the labels that we don't often get to see. And I would like to encourage people to think about that before joining in with the societal labels we place on people and to watch our language.

Speaker 1: 36:43

As I've mentioned in previous podcasts and blogs, to do with mindset. How we speak to and about people could set them up either to fail or succeed. We all have a hand in society. We all have a hand in society. We all have the ability to either build up or break down with our language and the words that we use. You know, we could all easily fall into the doom and gloom and make it happen, because that's the narrative that we keep repeating until it becomes real. Rules of the mind remember. See previous podcasts and blogs to do with rules of the mind. And especially, I'd like you to like to refer you to marissa pia. She's really brilliant at explaining the rules of the mind.

Speaker 1: 37:28

So where I am focusing my energy on is improving my own situation. I'm focusing on finding solutions. We can put forward the statistics, the problems, the issues, as I have done, um, and just leave it at that and let it be a negative, doom and gloom situation, or we can accept that there are problems and try to find solutions. Instead of blaming, pointing fingers, belittling, we can instead focus our energy on finding solutions. I mean, we're human beings Human beings are such creative, innovative people of invention necessity, and we adapt. We can make things better. That's what we've generally been trying to do for centuries and centuries. Okay, we've gone in a cockeyed way and gone in a downward spiral because of our need to improve things, because we had a skewed idea of what improvement means, but that doesn't mean it's all bad. We can work together. We can come up with positive solutions for ourselves and make better contributions to society so that we don't perpetuate the situation we're in and we don't have to go for the political ideal of what needs to be done.

Speaker 1: 38:46

I am only one person and all I can do is what I can do. As I said, I focus on myself, my own character. I focus on my home, my family, and then outwardly into the community and be careful of the way that I speak and treat people. As you know, I'm on a journey myself to improve our financial situation, our freedom, our independence, our self-reliance, self-sufficiency, if you like, sufficient for our needs and more to save for the future. There's another topic on that. Altogether, I think we've waffled on enough today.

Speaker 1: 39:19

I hope that I have responded appropriately and satisfactorily to some thought from listeners, viewers and readers and that you leave this podcast feeling or thinking that it's important to look beyond the numbers and the propaganda and all of the stuff that we're fed. We're like mushrooms, kept in the dark and fed on muck, but we don't have to be. We could be informed. We can take these things into our own hands and start at zone one, which is a permaculture term for self and where you are. You have a brilliant week, a couple of weeks until the next podcast. I do blogs in between and videos on YouTube. I will, as soon as I can, get onto some useful videos. Until then, folks head over to all of those Links in the description and show notes. I'd be grateful for that. Any more questions? If you have any thoughts, suggestions, ideas to share, if you have any experiences or challenges that you're facing right now, I'd love to hear from you. Take care, folks. Bye-bye.