Putting Life Into Perspective

Extract from

Rich Thinking About the World's Poor

by Peter Meadows.

Where the words come from I don't know. And I can't vouch for every statistic quoted. But the sentiment is powerful. Next time you – or someone nearby – are having a bad day try this for size:

• If you woke up this morning with more health than illness, you are more blessed than the million who will not survive this week.
• If you have never experienced the danger of battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture or the pangs of starvation, you are ahead of 500 million people in the world.
• If you can attend a church meeting without fear of harassment, arrest, torture or death, you are luckier than three billion people in the world.
• If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof over your head and a place to sleep, you are richer than 75 per cent of the world.
• If you have money in the bank, in your purse, and spare change in a dish somewhere, you are among the top eight per cent of the world's wealthy.

These words may not exactly be ‘Footprints', but they still speak volumes to us in our ‘life must be perfect for me' world. Because for most people life is anything other than perfect.

When I first came across these words they'd been sent to someone for whom life was going considerably pear shaped. And they concluded with, ‘And by reading this message you are doubly blessed because I was thinking about you, and love you'.

And isn't that the rub? It's not just that we can become so focused on our own needs that we fail to see them in their true perspective. It's that, in the process, we become distracted from thinking about – and genuinely loving – those who really know how bad things can be.

Two shopping lists:

What it would cost to...

• Help the world to feed itself — $8 billion
• Provide the world with clean water — $9 billion
• Provide universal primary education — $6 billion

What the world already spends...

• On the military — $780 billion     
• On illegal drugs — $400 billion
• On perfumes — $12 billion

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