Better Off

I did a paper in school the other day about the demographic of my city.  I found it really interesting that my city, Troy, Michigan, was much more affluent than the average city in the U.S.

This got me thinking, I'm a really lucky person.  I mean I live in a place that the average human being on this earth would be envious of.

The thing is, how often do I notice how lucky I am?  I mean I watch the riots in Egypt and I am forced to think again about how lucky I am that I live in a place that I am allowed to have a peaceful demonstration about, just about anything.  I live in a place that I don't at the moment, feel I need to protest in any major way.

Although, I'm not like, singing, 'I love America' all day long, I would say I'm pretty lucky to live in a country that at least proposes to be pretty free.

The sad truth is that most of the population in most countries is living with less then I am living with.  A lot of this population is living with a lot less.  Much of this population is also living in countries that are not 'free.'

I don't know the exact statistics of these things, but I do know that I have been blessed with a silver spoon, yet I still somehow seem to feel my life has been plagued with problems.

If someone from the slums of Detroit were to look from the outside at my parents house (where I'm staying this month because my mother is away) this person might be surprised that we have 'real' problems.  Maybe they would laugh at our problems.

I wish sometimes I could look at my life from their perspective.  As I stated in a previous post, there was study done that proposed that it only takes $75,000 for a family of four to be happy.  That seemed like a small number to me, but much of the world's population doesn't even have that much.

So what am I so worried about?

It seems to me that since I don't really have to worry about 'survival' in a base sense then all my other worries are not really important.  I mean I have to worry about surviving in some sense of the word, but I have so many people in my life that would back me up if I needed it.

So tell me, what are you worried about?

Do you worry when you walk out your front door that you will get mugged or in some way hurt by someone you don't know?  Are you worried you may not be able to afford groceries this week and don't know what you will feed your kids?

If you said no to these things, than maybe you also don't have it so bad.

I am aware that everything is relative, and you can't always compare your problems with anyone else's because it's just a different ball game.

But the fact remains that we are much better off than many people and to take a minute and appreciate that might make us a lot happier.

nina