Lately, I've been finding myself thinking about what's wrong about the way the world is existing. I'll be in class listening to a lecture or listening to country music on my dorm room bed, and I'll think about this question of mine: how can we live like this?
For most of my life, I've lived in this beautiful little Montana town that I am so lucky to have grown up in. It's gorgeous, and it has this extreme natural vibe that I love. However, it has a low racial and social class diversity. That's not how the rest of the world is.
Since I've been in college, I've seen inequality like never before. I've met people that don't have a place to stay at night. I've seen the chilling statistics of hunger rates in this Montana county of just over 100,000 people. I've met people who can't go to the doctor because they don't have health insurance, and it's too expensive otherwise. How can we live like this?
I've recently been exposed to situations that chill me to the bone. Why do social classes exist? And why are there over a billion people who don't have clean drinking water, enough food, or a roof to sleep under while hundreds of thousands of people are making hundreds of millions of dollars each year to live luxurious lives with vacation homes and maids? How can we live in this world that is all so wonderful yet so indifferent? How can we live like this?
Once upon a time, I thought that the way I grew up and the way I live and everything I'm blessed with was average, typical. It's not. I grew up with a roof over my head. I grew up in a nice, safe neighborhood, and my family was my biggest blessing. I always ate three meals, sometimes more, there was an abundance of snacks, and clean water flowed from the faucet.
Sure, I knew that there were people that had it worse off than I did. I knew that people went without meals, and I knew that some people didn't come home to a bed and running water and a family. But, I was duped. I was fooled by television. I was fooled by movies. I was fooled by the internet. I was fooled by society to believe that this is the average life of an average person. No. This is the lucky life. I'm lucky to have the things I have. Your everyday person doesn't simply go to college. Your everyday person doesn't have three meals appear on the table each day. This is real. How can we live like this?
This morning, I woke up at my own ease in a bed with a Memory Foam pad in a dorm room that I payed thousands of dollars to rent. Where did you wake up?
This afternoon, as I drove to the grocery store to buy food for an Easter picnic, I saw a couple pushing everything they own in a cart down main street in the rain. Are you worried about where you're going to sleep tonight?
What have we done that has discarded a world that's fair, a world that cares, and a world that is kind to those who need it most? What have we done that has made us to forget how lucky we are to live the way we live?
How can we live like this?
