ok, first I need to say that my brothers are both dating two very awesome girls. If I died right now and they both married these girls I’d be happy. No pressure guys!
Amanda is dating David. She has grown up in small town Indiana and she is getting ready to travel half way around the world to Australia for a few months. Amanda, you are gonna love it, babe! Anyway, I digress. We are currently in the middle of an ice storm and the preparations began this morning as we knew it was coming our way.
Amanda and I both love Facebook and the following conversation happened this morning:
Me to David on his ‘wall': did you get the generator and shot-gun shells? The baths are full of water. I’m hoping we survive the storm of the century and at least living in Carmel we know the roads will be clear isn’t that right Amanda Dean?!
Amanda: haha love this! Oh and you’d appreciate THIS too…last night David and I went into a pizza place in Greentown and there were shirts for sale that said “I survived the Greentown Earthquake” and then it had the date of the earthquake lol I was like wow…u can tell we come from a small town! Everythings a big deal for us :)
Now, none of that probably make sense to the average reader. BUT the point is David had been making fun of someone in Carmel for freaking out about the storm. I was making fun of the fact that some people believe that money can buy you anything – even clear roads. Amanda was making fun of ‘surviving the earthquake’ which was a rather small earthquake.
The bigger point was that some people struggle to look beyond their little world. People truly believe that ‘surviving’ a small earthquake or having clear roads with a few inches of snow are important things in life and in a sense they are BUT when your world has been expanded you suddenly realise these things pale into comparison to the follow:
- Half the world – nearly 3 billion people – live on less than two dollars a day.
- 640 million have no adequate shelter
- 1 in 7 has no access to health services
- The richest 2% of the world’s population own HALF of the world’s wealth.
(USA weekend stats http://www.povertycrisis.com/stats.html)
Suddenly, clear roads with a couple of inches of snow and earthquakes that leave no damage pale into insignificants.
