Toms Blog on Life

Not that Labour would be any better. We need to ban political donations from corporations, limit them to $1,000 for individuals, create a federal ICAC with powers to investigate retrospective charges and preferably abolish political parties so elected representatives are responsible to their electorate, not their party.

There is a little booklet with a huge potential effect. It is called The Way To Happiness. Here is one story of what it has done.

(Criminon is the delivery of The Way To Happiness to prison inmates. Inmates doing the program have a much lower rate of recidivism.)

Well, I am not sure if y’all had enough of the wins at Criminon,, so here is another one:

“Do you mind if I say a few words too?”

I turned around to see a determined lady in a smart business suit imploringly looking at me.

“Umm sure, but who are you?”

“I am the partner of a leading stock brokerage firm in the city. My brother is one of the graduates and I would like to speak on behalf of our family to the audience.”

“Okay, absolutely.” I said. “Let me introduce you.”

I turned back to address the audience of family, prison officials and graduates and asked for their attention.

The smartly dressed lady eased forward, introduced herself and thus began her story…

“We are a close, loving tight knit family. My brother has been a character all his life.

We tolerated the ups and the downs with him. He brought us laughter but also a lot of tears.

Then he did something that brought embarrassment onto himself and finally despair on our family.

It was very trying and very depressing for us as a family.

We felt severely let down by his actions and the shame it brought. Neighbors now kind of looked at us differently.

And we felt embarrassed that we brought this onto our neighbors and onto ourselves… and we felt like social pariahs.

But we gathered as a family. After all, he is our brother, our son and uncle.

After the court hearings and sentencing it was a relief to just get through that and be able know where he was going to be located and how long he would be gone and what the future – bleak as it seemed- held for him and us.

With the relief of the daily court visits done, we now needed to get accustomed to the prison visits.

One kind of never gets used to arriving at the prison gate, announcing your name and saying you’re here to visit your brother.

That stings your pride.

And we know what pride can do…

(Oh, and you’re only allowed 2 visitors per visit and we have a huge family, brothers and sisters and kids and parents, a big close tight family.)

Well, we thought it would be straight forward, you know.

We come and visit our brother and he tells us how he is working hard to mend his ways and he will be bubbly and happy to see us.

But that’s not what we walked into, in that visiting room.

My brother was unrecognizable to us. He looked like a vagrant, like a bum.

Disheveled, in despair and depressed.

He spoke of how terrible it is. And each visit he looked worse.

He became suicidal.

At home, us, his family despaired for him, worried for his state of mind and health.

What could we do?

We have wealth.

We have our family bond. We were desperate. What do we do?

To make things worse, the thought of the weekend visits almost made us sick.

I noticed the reluctance to go and visit from myself and my family.

But I visited every weekend. We are family.

Then as the weekends blurred by, one weekend we noticed that our brother was not as miserable. I thought, okay, this is a minor improvement and hoped this was not just an up and then another down next week!

Then the next visit he was clean. And, he said some nice things to us.

Then the following visit, I noticed that he was excited to see us.

He was neat and clean.

He had that clear-eyed look I last saw years ago and he spoke of his future and he was excited about it!

Well I took that news home with me and my parents and siblings.

The next weekend visit he told us that he has definite plans for his future when he is released, that he accepts full responsibility for his actions and will make it up to our family as he knows that is has been harder for us outside than he realized.

What? He never did this!!

By now as each weekend approached, with us having such a large family and my brother now becoming the inspiration to us all, we had to draw straws to see who won the opportunity to visit him!

Incredible!

One weekend he finally told us that he has never been happier, albeit in a prison, and that he is one of the leaders of the Criminon students in the prison.

I was so happy for him but didn’t know what Criminon was and had never heard of it.

He told us about The Way to Happiness and how it’s been the difference between life and death for him. He has so much love and appreciation for life and for the chance to help for the first time. He was now becoming the brother he always wanted to be and we always wanted him to be!!

So I want to thank you, Greg and Criminon, on behalf of our brother, on behalf of our family for what you have accomplished with him and with his fellow graduates here.”

I stepped forward, smiling, but unable to mouth an acknowledgment to this wonderful story of a family reunited with the prodigal brother.

We applauded loud and cheered louder for the graduates … while the tears of joy rolled down our cheeks.

Man is basically good! He is, at his core, so darn good…

Much love,

Greg Capazorio

https://www.thewaytohappiness.org/