Walk the talk. And kids will follow.

An old incident, that happened in 2000 while I was at Gent (Belgium) on work.
Was reminded of this when I saw school kids helping the cops regulate traffic on the roads. Reinforces the saying that the best way of making kids lead, is to set the right example.
Walk the talk and kids will follow.

Its 8AM and I am walking to the bus stop near Sint Pieters to catch the bus to office. I had planned to be at the office at 8:15AM, but woke up late. I see a number 70 bus coming at
the end of the road and I don't want to miss it because the next one might be 10 minutes
away, for all I know.

But I have to cross over to the other side of the road to catch the bus. The signal is green
for the vehicles and red for the pedestrians. There is a guy waiting to cross the road with
his small kid (5 years old max). I see no cars on the road and the bus is approaching fast.
If I wait for the pedestrian signal to turn green, I might miss the bus and will be late for
office. I decide to make a dash for it as there are no cars coming.

I put a foot forward and then decide not to, because there is this guy near me and it does
not seem to be the correct thing to do in a country where people follow the rules. I decide
to wait for the signal to turn green, even if it means that I will be late.

The guy was watching me all through because he said something in Dutch to me. I told
him that I follow only English. Then he said in English "Please do not set a bad example
for the kids to follow".

Man, I was so embarassed. But at the same time, it really struck me why we in India
are a people who never follow the rules. Or why we follow them only if the cop is around.
I understood that it's because we as kids did not get the proper example to follow. If only
our parents/elders had respected the rules, we would respect the rules even if big brother
was not around, and India would have safer roads, to say the least.

I told him that I was sorry and crossed the road, when the light turned green. The bus
came in just after that and I reached office as planned.

Maybe we can't do anything about the present generation who bend the rules, apart from
trying to change ourselves. But there is still hope, as we can instill the right example for the
next generation to follow.