...a lot of recent events would never have happened.
No children fleeing Syria would be hungry, without parents, kept from education, or suffer from anxiety, insomnia, or nightmares.
No country would presume the right to take over another sovereign country just because.
No crazed gunman would attend a movie and then create mayhem.
No drugs would make their way into homes and school yards, street corners and alleys.
No children of five or six would be grabbed off the street and sold into slavery.
No loved ones would show up at an airport to welcome a family member only to be told the plane has vanished.
No child of promise would be told that money, race, religion, sexual preference, or parentage, kept them from educational or job opportunities.
No one would have to explain away yet another blackened eye or bruised jaw.
No one would every be told that their health care coverage did not cover a treatment that would save a loved one's life.
No child would have to wonder if they will have a place to sleep at night, or a home to return to after school.
No mother would have to muster the last of her energy to shoo flies away from her child's eyes, nose, mouth.
...and on and on and on.
BUT, that's not the reality of life on this spinning globe.
Unfortunately, these examples are the reality of OTHERS, not my reality. Because I am not directly effected by any of the above negative events, it is easy for me to flip the channel to a more positive story, put down the newspaper or turn to the comics, and keep my iPhone showing Angry Birds and not the global news apps. In my world, a simple switch can keep me from seeing the world as it really is. What this does, I have come to believe, is that it makes those dire events of my own life not only front and center, but huge and overwhelming.
Like...
...another week of below zero temperatures.
...a clothes dryer that has stopped emitting heat.
...a swimming pool in the backyard that needs repair.
...a dirty car or empty gas tank.
...a friend's slight.
...a day when allergies flare up.
...an evening with two more robo-calls letting Shawn know that he can delay paying his student loans with no penalties.
We can choose to see the BIG picture which at the very least should make us a little less bitchy about our own little problems, or we can continue to see the big picture in our own little worlds, thus isolating ourselves from the larger human community.
The question each must answer is how to acknowledge the realities of life without becoming overwhelmed, frozen with inactivity, or a cloistered nun.
IDK!
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