You are pissed. I get it. Corporate America has more than you, and it is unfair. You can't find a job and that is really crappy. You live at or below the poverty line, struggling to make it work. I am NOT discrediting these as legitimate issues to be angry about. However....
925 million people do not have enough to eat and 98 percent of them live in developing countries.
65 percent of the world's hungry live in only seven countries: India, China, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan and Ethiopia.
Under-nutrition contributes to five million deaths of children under five each year in developing countries.
884 million people in the world do not have access to safe water. This is roughly one in eight of the world's population.
2.6 billion people in the world do not have access to adequate sanitation, this is almost two fifths of the world's population.
Did you use a toilet today? Did you get water that was safe to drink? Did you eat something? Is your child dying because of unsanitary conditions and lack of food and water? I think it is safe to say not. Is life hard, and times tough? YES. YES IT/THEY ARE. But count your blessings folks. You are in America, where people don't tell you how to live. You worship who and how you want, you function in your life the way you chose, and for the most part you eat and drink when you are hungry. Politics and money and greed may be effed up, but all things considered, if you are reading this, you are doing pretty well. All I am really proposing is this: take the time you want to spend being pissed off and angry at corporations or people or whatever, and use it to remember and feel thanks for what you DO have. See if by nature that doesn't help change your perspective a bit.
Love Ya'll.
You are assuming that gratefulness and thankfulness cannot occur hand in hand with anger and outrage. I initially was introduced to this concept through ICAN (The International Cesarean Awareness Network) where I worked with women who attended monthly support groups because they felt robbed of a birth experience that they had so desperately wanted. This popular essay says it all:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.birthtruth.org/grateful.htm
Telling someone how grateful they should be for what they DO have, only devalues their feelings and their experience about what they DON'T have. When I took an Interpersonal Communications Class last quarter, this exact style was listed as one of the most inefficient methods of communication. It is very common to tell someone "You should be grateful", but it accomplishes very little, except to make someone feel guilty, or have them believe that their feelings don't matter. It lacks the empathy that is crucial for successful communication.
If it weren't for outrage, nothing would ever change. The Occupy movement is much like my friends at ICAN. The anger of these mothers has been harnessed into this huge organization that has brought forth really important change to maternal health in this country. It has garnered media attention nationwide for issues that are so important, even as each of these women has acknowledge how grateful they are to have a healthy child.
It is the human condition to always strive for a better life, and that, my friend, is beautiful.
I've been very concerned and interested in world hunger for several years now. I've learned a lot. I've learned that if every American citizen reduced their meat intake by just 10%, that we could free up enough grain to feed 60 million people. I've learned that for as many people in the world who die of hunger related causes, there is an equal amount of people who die from obesity related causes. I've learned that America has taken more and more land for our own cattle grazing because of our almighty love for burgers and steaks when that land could have been used to effectively feed those who are starving. These are not well known facts and when they do surface, they are quickly brushed under the rug, stifled, ridiculed and argued. These are issues that can bring forth change. And it has become more apparent that anger is the vehicle that will get us there. Not pity for the hungry, not gratefulness for our wealth, but anger that we are allowing this to happen. It will be anger that brings issues like these to the forefront. Anger demands attention. Anger is loud. And loud brings progress. Imagine how little attention would be given to the Occupy movement if it remained just a website. Even if it produced magazines, newsletters, drafted petitions, contacted representatives. Would literally every radio station in the nation be talking about it? Would the movement grow as quickly as it has? No way. Anger is necessary and it is no doubt, useful. And assuming that "grateful" and "anger" cannot exist simultaneously is hugely underestimating the complexity and range of the human experience.