Take a minute, count your blessings
HAL LENOBEL
Contributing Columnist
golf@lbknews.com
Please excuse my departure from the world of golf this week. Rather than write about the game of golf, I’ve chosen to write about the game of life. Read on and do count your blessings.
To help you realize how fortunate we are, I’m going to ask you to use your imagination.
If we could shrink the earth’s population to a small village of just 100 people, with all existing human ratios the same, that world would look like this:
• 57 of the 100 would be Asians.
• 21 would be Europeans.
• 14 would be from the Western hemisphere, both north and south.
• Eight would be Africans.
• 52 would be female, naturally 48 would be: male.
• 70 would be non-white, of course, 30 would be white.
• 70 would be non-Christian, 30 would be Christian.
• 94 would be heterosexual, six would be homosexual.
• Of the 100, six people would possess 59 percent of he entire world’s wealth and all six would be from the Unites States.
• 80 would live in substandard housing.
• 70 would be unable to read.
• 50 would suffer from malnutrition.
• One would be near death.
• One would le near birth.
• One, yes only one, would have a college education.
• One, yes only one, would own a computer. When you consider our world from such a compressed perspective, the need for acceptance, understanding and education becomes glaringly apparent.
Therefore, we can draw this conclusion:
• If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof over your head and a place to sleep, you are better off than 75 percent of this world.
• If you wake up in the morning with more health than illness, you are more blessed than the millions who will not survive this week.
• If you have money in the bank, in your wallet and spare change in a dish someplace, you are among the top 8 percent of the world’s wealthy.
• If you can attend a church meeting without fear of harassment, arrest, torture or death, you are more blessed than 3 billion people in the world.
• If you have never experienced the danger of battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture or the pangs of starvation, you are ahead of 500 million people in the world.
• If your parents are alive and still married, you are very rare, even in the United States.
• If you can hold someone’s hand, hug him or her or even touch him or her on the shoulder, you are blessed because you can offer a healing touch.
• If you hold up your head with a smile on your face and are truly thankful, you are blessed, because the majority can, but most do not.
• If you can just listen to what I have said, just be aware that someone is thinking of you, and by listening you are more fortunate than 2 billion people in the world who are unable to listen in peace and tranquility to any message.
By just remembering how life is in the rest of the world, just remember how blessed you really are. Reach out and love your family, cherish your friends and treasure your neighbors!
