The Difference
The phrase "the rich and the poor" isn't an uncommon one. In fact, most of us probably hear that on a daily basis. However, how many of us actually feel it deep inside? Not many I am guessing. Although some of us walk through our lives knowing that we have privileges another person might not have, that fact doesn't become starkeningly real. In all my years of growing up, I always knew that I had something someone else didn't have in my life. I mean I had a safe and loving family, a nice comfortable bed to snuggle into every night, and a wonderful education in an environment some would only dream of. All the things I have been given is probably someone elses dream. While all that was the simple reality of my life.
We never stop to think about the privileges we have, the things we have been given. But instead we think about what we don't have that someone else does. I mean is it just human nature to keep wanting more than what you already have? The grass is often times greener on the other side of the fence. However, that is no excuse to keep living our lives as if the whole world is our oyster, and ours to conquer. The goal in our lives seems to be to be successful, make alot of money and become widely respected. Everything becomes about you, and what you want. Do we ever stop to think that maybe just maybe, we can dedicate our lives for a moment to give someone something that we have but they don't? Unfortunately we don't.
Regardless of how many people worldwide may believe that volunteerism, and working to create a better life for someone else is common, it in fact is not. For me, it seems as if the people who really possess the power to make a huge difference in millions of lives don't think to use that power. But the people who are barely making it through with one decent meal a day are the ones that step up. And the reason why those people step up is because they know what it is like to be without the privileges. I can't say that I know what it feels like to go hungry, or to be without a sheltering home. But what I can say is that I at least put in my whole-hearted efforts to try and make someone have the privileges I have had.
I go through each day thinking and knowing that I am better off than someone else, but to be honest I didn't feel it so strongly until today. I volunteer a few orphanages to teach the kids English, and today after introducing myself to the kids, while I was just about to begin the day's lesson, one of the girls asked me how I have an American accent. I told her that I've lived overseas all my life while receiving an education from private American schools. She replied to my comment by turning to her friend sitting by her saying "I guess that's the difference between the rich and the poor, the rich always get everything, and the poor always get nothing." It may not occur to you, what a comment like that can do to a person, but as for me, I can't stop thinking about what that little girl said. And hearing what she said over and over again inside my head, the only urge I have is to somehow give her my life, and maybe trade places with her so she could have what I.
Despite our delusions, life shouldn't be about how much money you make, or how respected you are in society. Instead, it should be about what difference you make in someone else's life. Isn't that what life is about? To make an impression in someone else's heart? We all should think about giving rather than taking, not for one moment in time, but all the time. Afterall, time is all we have in life, the distinction comes in what we do with that time.
