Do You Need a Little Perspective?

Ah, December! A month of craziness, consumerism, and crashes (both economic and emotional). I've felt that the "true meaning of Christmas" has been lost to me in a flood of tasks and stresses. I know that others have felt the same way, and I remembered something my cousin Rose sent me a couple of years ago. It bears repeating:

Earth City

If Earth’s population was shrunk into a village of just 100 people, with all the human ratios existing in the world remaining, this is what our village would look like...

61 would be Asian

21 would be European

14 would be from the Western Hemisphere

8 would be African

52 would be female

48 would be male

70 would be non-Christian

30 would be Christian

70 would be black

30 would be white

6 people would possess 59% of the entire world’s wealth,

and all 6 would be from the United States

80 would live in substandard housing

70 would be unable to read and write

50 would suffer from malnutrition

1 would be near death

1 would be pregnant

1 would have a college education

1 would own a computer

If you live in a good home, have plenty to eat and can read, you are a member of a very select group. And if you have a good house, food, can read and have a computer, you are among the very elite. If you woke up this morning with more health than illness...you are more fortunate 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 fortunate, more than three billion people who cannot. If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof overhead and a place to sleep...you are richer than 75% of this world. If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, and spare change in a dish someplace...you are among the top 8% of the world’s wealthy. If you can read this message you are more fortunate than the two billion people who cannot read at all.

I need a reminder, that Christmas or no, we all are truly blessed with things that we absolutely take for granted. Somehow, whether or not my child gets a Leapster seems to matter a whole lot less when I think of the suffering and pain in this world. Starting right now, I'm refocusing myself: on family, on giving, on gratitude.