I think all you can really hope for in this life is adequate food and shelter, and the mercy of a loving God. A family to care for you is a bonus. Someone to love you is almost an unspeakable hope.
I look at the way so many of us live, myself included, and cringe. I should be spending as little money as possible and giving the rest of it to people who are starving and diseased. I mean, what do I honestly need to survive in America? A small, one room apartment at best. Enough money for water, and perhaps a sandwich and an apple a day. A pair of pants. A shirt. A jacket. Shoes. Maybe a blanket to sleep on. And even in some cases, this is getting pretty darn luxurious.
I don’t need a cell phone. I don’t need an ipod. I don’t need new music, new clothes, pets, more food, and all of those horrible luxuries I enjoy and take for granted every day.
If I realize how fortunate I am, why do I get this depressed? I should be incredibly happy eight days a freakin’ week. I’m blessed in ways so many people could not even imagine. I was complaining earlier that “It’s not fair.” I was right—it’s not fair. I just happened to be born with parents that made a living and love to share it with me.
I think this makes it my duty, as a blessed and fortunate American, to use my education and resources to help the starving and diseased people of this world. Oh, I feel so puny and small it makes me sick.
It’s true, we really are truly fortunate to have the things we do, but I don’t think we should reject them because other places don’t have them.
I think that even though we don’t need our luxuries we should be massively thankful that we live in a country that God has blessed, and give thanks every single day.
I think that it’s great to be aware of the struggling people all over the world so we don’t take things for granted here where we have everything we want when we want it.
Good blog Alyssa.
It’s refreshing to hear this from an American teenager. But knowing you, I’m not really surprise that you harbor feelings and thoughts like these.
You’re so very right. I have to say though that just acknowledging the aches and hunger and desolation present in the rest of the world and being “thankful” for what we have here in America (as Wil says) is not enough. NOT ENOUGH I TELL YOU!
Would it be enough to just ‘acknowledge’ that your ages mum is dying on her bed? No frkn way. Wil, get off your bum, take your pants off and give it to a poor kid down south who really could use it.