Decay is all around us, can you smell it? It's in schools, in work places, in shops, it even lingers in our clothes. It's in the footsteps we take and if we aren't careful, the smell stays. It follows us around like a bad odour - well it is a bad odour but not the kind that we know. It's not like the smell of rubbish slowly decomposing, or the smell of a baby's nappy. We can't Febreze it away not matter how much we try because this smell comes from us and the choices we make. Some may even go so far to say that we are the smell. Let me show you how.

You see, this sweet smell of decay isn't really something you can see straight away, it builds up over time. It's that horrible feeling you are wasting away, that moment when you stop and think 'what's the point of this?' and realise that what you are doing does not make you happy. That's right, it's unhappiness. It's doing things because we have to, because we have no choice - because that's how they have always been done. It's when we don't put our hearts into what we are doing - when what we do has little meaning. And this is the sweet smell of us wasting away, the sweet smell of decay.

Can you smell it? I hope not. 

The Sweet Smell of Decay

 by Paul Lawrence