While there are those out there who are battling silently every day - with their lives - to make the world a better place, the rest of the affluent world is engaging in middle-class rhetorics.

Engaging in vigils, marches and “peaceful demonstrations” (whilst still maintaining the privilege of sustaining our careers and private commitments) is fine in as long as we do not forget that there are those whose livelihood and security are at stake every day because they are wholly devoted to that cause for which they live. These are silently empowering the poor, educating the ragged children in the streets, and tending to the dying. No amount of vigils, marches and “peaceful demonstrations” we engage in can ever match the cost they are paying for the choices they have made.

Each affluent human person is empowered to, and must, choose his direction in life. The curse of poverty is that one does not have the power to choose. But the curse of affluence is that the onus falls on the empowered one to choose his path in life, between that which is good and that which is better; to define with his God-given conscience what his life ideals will be.

Making the right decisions for our lives gets more and more difficult as we progress in our life journey. At a certain stage of life, by the time we decide to turn back and make the right decisions, we realise that we are a dozen decisions too late. There are now a lifestyle to sustain, commitments to stand by, social and organisational positions to protect, and reputations to maintain. And perhaps it would simply be easier to let our conscience be dulled and to keep rationalising ourselves out of these disturbing mental conversations.

The greatest self-deceit happens when we can deceive ourselves into thinking we are not deceiving ourselves.