Realities around us can and do change and most of the time, we cannot alter the path of the changes taking place.

We ourselves are also subject to the effects of change. We can be healthy today, now, as we speak, and suffer a crippling stroke in the next minute. We may be  assertively giving orders today, totally helpless and dependent  tomorrow.

Yet being aware of this reality does not deter most of us from  making plans, short-term and long-term plans,  in an endeavour to make life  worth living  for our loved ones, our communities and ourselves.

Roadmaps in place, realistically thought out and costed, we then proceed to the next  step  in normal living, that is to live through those plans and enjoy the fruit and benefits of balanced planning. Financial gain, though important, should play second fiddle to the quality of life, particularly to a state of physical, mental and social well-being  conducive to a life of internal peace and  happiness.

As a mother I cannot restrain myself from  strongly expressing how incredibly important it is to  be able to watch one's children grow into  healthy adults of substance , and conversely how devastating it is to  be compelled to watch  your children struggle to survive  afflictions of whatever nature, the source of which one cannot control.

To my mind, Government to citizen relationship can be viewed as something akin to the ideal mother/ child relationship. Responsible governance should produce a state were the general well being of  all its people  remains the top priority, where citizens in vulnerable situations are helped to find their feet and then encouraged to make their own life. Citizens who cannot help themselves for reasons beyond their control, like the sick and elderly should be consistently and adequately cared for, and all other citizens are freely allowed and encouraged to realise their full potential, while bettering  themselves and their country.

And as happens on an individual basis, a government makes its plans, a pivotal one of which is the National Budget which should go beyond statistics and numbers, and be what it needs to be: A clear declaration of what priorities and values a country stands for.

Next Monday, Malta and Gozo will listen to the traditional  budget speech . Our growing National Debt, as in previous years will be somehow shrouded and played down .This year it  will be rendered hardly visible by the glare emanating from our glittering GDP which is set to outshine  our counterparts in most European countries. This is an accomplishment in its own right, true, but it is not a measure of how well our people are living or, or of the extent to which our most precious resource, our human resource, is being  allowed to realise  its full potential. 

Suffice it to say that in the years preceding the materialisation of the 'Arab Spring', Tunisia and Egypt also had sky rocketing GDPs. In any case, any drive for further growth and development in this country, should be empowered by a clear vision of where we want to take this nation, what we want our country to look like, what we want our country to feel like to live in. 

We know many resource rich super wealthy nations, which fail to give their citizens a dignified, healthy, good quality of life.  Undoubtedly, health is the biggest wealth and sound minds and bodies require the clean political, social and physical environment necessary to thrive.

Simon  Kuznets , the Nobel Prize-winning economist who introduced the concept of GDP to the US Congress in 1934, was actually the first to caution about GDP's limitations. Kuznets wrote: "Economic welfare cannot be adequately measured unless the personal distribution of income is known. And no income measurement undertakes to estimate the reverse side of income, that is, the intensity and unpleasantness of effort going into the earning of income. The welfare of a nation can, therefore, scarcely be inferred from a measurement of national income."

This year we celebrated the 50 th Anniversary of our National Independence, which means that we have been our own masters for half a century and cannot blame others ruling our islands anymore. We have come a  long way in many ways,  have survived numerous internal and  international  crises,   income tax adventures  vacillating  between tax hikes and tax breaks, good and bad  policies ,  success in some quarters, abject failures in others. 

Through all these years and in the name of growth, two pillars that support our existence have been dangerously shaken. Our environment has been taxed to extinction and our health has been taxed into sickness , all this  while 6 digit amounts of our money were simultaneously  spent in the care of both!

The challenge in the upcoming budget is how to connect our measures to improve prosperity with our knowledge and will to improve well-being.   The next is to focus on solutions that are most likely to increase equitable distribution of material wealth and  enhance general well-being simultaneously.

Of course, this is  more easily said than done, but it is always a good start  to start  if one really wants to start somewhere.

We can start for instance  by rehabilitating the South through restoring  what is left of its priceless architectural and natural beauty, introduce mitigating landscaping measures to conceal the gaping wounds of industrial presence wherever possible, create well maintained open spaces between built up blocks, service the streets properly. We can clean the air by  carrying out the promised measures , refrain from creating more traffic magnets, and stop developers from snatching  what's left of the  people's unencumbered natural shoreline...

Then we can proceed to release the many mothers enslaved in jobs with precarious working conditions, and make sure our taxes provide for the creation of amply paid jobs which allow a work life balance , rather than being siphoned off to owners of companies who for some  obscure reason are allowed to exploit workers  relentlessly and repeatedly.

All in all, suffice it to conclude by saying that our children deserve a healthy, happy present and   future , not just children allowances , day care centres and  other sorts of herding , knowledge processing institutions.