Meeting Cynthia Morton

I’ve had an interesting 48 hours and I’ve met some amazing people. First off, I had a fantastic opportunity to meet the 2005 Australian of the Year - Cynthia Morton; and second, I had the opportunity to speak at a United Nations Youth Association I met some really cool young people with dreams filled full of hope desire and passion. Both events had an interesting effect on me but perhaps not the effect that one would expect. Let me explain.
Cythia Morton is an absolutely amazing person who has overcome traumatic experiences such as child abuse and drug addiction and channeled her life long pain into an amazing story that she shares with Australians trying to overcome similar problems. To hear Cythia speak is nothing short of an incredible gift as you capture a glimpse into the life of someone who has experienced incredible pain and suffering and how her passion and persistence have come together to turn things around for her.

While most of Cynthia’s work is viewed by people involved with mental health I looked upon her story through the eyes of young person looking to change the world hoping to find some lessons I could use in my quest. Cynthia spoke a lot about her two sons and how her destructive lifestyle had an immense impact on their lives. There was one story in particular that stood out where she was in a shopping centre with her two boys and just collapsed onto the floor and curled up in the foetal position. Her two sons just stood over her and kept calming her down and managed to phone her peer support person to come and pick them up. They knew she was in trouble yet were totally focused on helping her in such a clear step by step process. That’ll only happen to kids when they are used to it and know exactly what to do when it happens. I’m sure there are heaps of kids who are faced with emergency situations like Cynthia’s kids but you never really hear about it do you?

So these kids were switched on and loved their mother very much despite what she was doing to herself. When Cynthia began to clean her life up the boys were a bit older and she tells this one story of how one day they came to her and asked her or rather told her that they wanted to take up music. The eldest wanted to play drums and the youngest wanted to play guitar. She encouraged them to follow their heart and both boys picked up the instruments and started playing. As with any instrument you need to practice and during those formative years unless you’re the musician playing the instrument “practice” has a close resemblance to screeching nails on a chalkboard. Despite all of this Cynthia continued to encourage her boys with amazing results.

The boys formed a band and started playing gigs around Brisbane and soon entered a battle of the bands competition. Unfortunately they didn’t win but came very close thanks to her encouragement and support. Following their success from that competition they entered the TEDUncharted Competition and managed to win it!!! For a local band this meant that they would receive national recognition AND get to play at one of Australia’s largest music festivals - The Big Day Out. AMAZING Success!!!

And that’s what really brought the whole thing home to me as to why Cynthia is an amazing person. She’s undergone such phenomenal negativity in her life and turned things around for not only herself but her family as well and shares her lessons in life to others hoping to achieve the same thing. For these people she is truly changing the world.

Adults often forget they are in a position of power when it comes to impressionable young people. A young person will come to them and ask their advice on a particular issue and adults will not think about their answer properly and will quite often discourage the young person from pursuing that idea. Sure there are lots of cases where adults do actually encourage kids but these days society tends to be rather negative so these cases tend to be the exception rather than the rule.

In Cynthia’s case it was her sons coming to her to ask or rather tell about playing musical instruments. Even though Cynthia experienced such negativity in her life in that moment she overflowed positivity towards her sons’ requests and supported them in their decision and look at the results. Imagine what would have happened if in that moment Cynthia had called her kids crazy and discouraged them from following their passion?

ALL Adults need to think about the advice they are giving kids these days. They need to be careful what they say and always look to encourage young people to follow their dreams through guidance and support. There is a huge gap between the world of an adult and the world of a kid and one of the fundamental differences is the issue of knowledge versus wisdom. Young people gain knowledge very quickly but sometimes they lack the wisdom that experience brings. Adults have this wisdom yet very few impart it wisely. The difference between knowledge and wisdom is highlighted in one of my favourite quotes:

“Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad.”

So this week I challenge you to think about this disconnect between adults and kids. If you’re an adult reading this, keep in mind that you should be using your wisdom to guide and shape ideas of kids. Not kill their dreams - and sometimes you do it unconsciously. If you’re a young person reading this, recognise the fact that while you can gain knowledge quite easily you might not have the wisdom yet that experience brings and therefore might not be able to see the full picture. So go easy on the adults when you ask for their opinion on something important. Evaluate their experience and see if you can leverage it to turn your dreams into reality.

Which brings me to my next adventure, speaking at the United Nations Youth Association Conference…but that’s a story for next week…

Dream, Build, Inspire, Lead!

AJ~

P.S. Visit Cynthia’s Blog here

Author: AJ Kulatunga

Category:

Inspire, Dream, Cynthia Morton, youth, abuse, drug addiction, inspiring women,