One thing I have unmistakably noticed in my travels around the world is the contrast between caring and control. One of the clearest examples of this was when I saw a group of teenagers and university students drinking and smoking in a park in Riga, Latvia. While I was talking to them they saw a police officer in the distance. They quickly started putting out their cigarettes and hiding their beer. They told me that there was a new law, designed to create a better image of the city for the tourists, which prohibited drinking and smoking in the parks in the center of town.

I knew some of the young people already. I knew they had come from broken homes. One student's father had killed himself. Another student's father was an alcoholic. I knew that these young people needed someone to care about them. But instead a police officer was coming there way who had the ability to control them by putting them in jail for breaking the law.

I still wonder what the world would be like if we had more roaming social workers who would stop by and have a chat with young people like this. Who would take time and get to know them and their needs. I knew them only a short time but I found out that they had no where to go to just hang out with and talk to their friends. Especially in the winter, when it was bitter cold (Latvia being close to Russia and Finland), they needed a warm, dry place to just meet and socialize.

I still wonder what the world would be like if we simply had more people who cared about us and fewer people who controlled us.

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