A different lens

Everyone has a diffierent lens to look at the world. Some people see it as a place of luxury and fun where they have been put on top to enjoy it's pleasures. Others see it as somewhere dangerous where everyone and everything is out to get them. Some see it as only a passing phase, a walk to trudge through until the promise on the other side arrives. There are millions of lenses. My lens is that of injustice and unfairness. The more I look, the more dissatisfied I become. And to a point, the more helpless I feel. We live on a planet where the richest 20% of people account for 3/4 of the worlds income. That leaves 80% living on only 1/4 of all the wealth in the world. Thousands of kids whose lives should just be beginning, die from disease and neglect. I see this and it makes me so frustrated. I want everyone to have the childhood I did, and the access to resources that I do. It's so difficult to face the facts that it will never happen. I try to turn myself around and look at what I can do to help, and I am overwhelmed. There is too much unfairness, and the problems are too big. There are millions of kids lacking education, millions of people dying of treatable diseases, simply too many people. How can anyone truly make a difference? What is the best way to approach the problems that are everywhere? Is it political, to send change from above? Is that the fastest way to change things? Or is it better to educate individuals so that they can in turn educate others? But that method is so much slower and never fool proof, and requires so much money and resources. Education is such a fickle thing. I can see it here. The kids have a lot to gain from being able to read and write and do math, but how many of them are actually going to leave their homes and the places they were raised to find a job that will make them more money? How many boys are still going to leave school after 6th grade to work, grow up a laborer and have trouble feeding their families? How many girls are still going to get pregnant too soon and have a newborn baby to care for? Some people may say that it's okay that they live how they always have, because it is a simpler life and they are accustomed to it, but they all know that there is an easier life out there, where they don't have to watch their children die because they can't get medical care, or work day in and day out to haul wood and water to their dirt houses in the mountains. I want to give these kids the world, but I don't even know how to do that with they few that I see everyday. I feel stretched by limited supplies when I want to do a craft. I feel constricted by a lack of people to help each kid with their work. Yet what they are getting is better than what they would have without any help. I just feel so much that it's not enough. I think of how some kids in the states are doted on from the moment they are born, who have mothers who stay home just to stimulate their minds and help them with their work. How are these kids ever going to compete. And even if they do, what about all the thousands of others who are lacking the same thing? The world mandates that someone has to be the laborers, and it's only the luck of the draw to say which those are.

It's overwhelming. I open my mind and all of this comes crashing in, so I almost need to narrow it to avoid the paralaysis that these thoughts cause. I need to act somehow, and do something. I need to set little goals that are achievable. Help Enis learn long division, work with Daniel so that he can learn more English. These things will help. These things will give them a foundaiton. That's all we can do. We can't completely control anyones life. We can just give them a base to work off. I wish I could divert the path of wealth in the world but obviously that doesn't happen.

Things would be so much easier if I could just ignore all the problems and injustices I see, and live my life out comfortably within the protection of my american shell. I feel like this is appropriate -"The world is full of miserable places. One way of living comfortably is not to think about them or, when you do, to send money." -Tracy Kidder. I'm not saying I would forget everything, but I could work at my life and my job, take trips to places and send money where needed. Which is, of course, everywhere. I would be happy, with a family of my own and a life of probable comfort. I've been reading too many books about people who make a difference. Greg Mortenson from "Three Cups of Tea" who devoted his life to building schools in pakistan. Paul Farmer from "Mountains beyond Mountains" who created a medical clinic in Haiti, and then convinced the world to treat impoverished people with second line TB drugs. I want to help and work towards something so worthy, but I feel like I'm not brave enough or good enough. I don't have the capability, and I would be scared to go without the security of a traditional job. I couldn't pack everything up the way they do. Where am I going to go? What am I going to do? I frankly have no idea. So for now, it's better that I focus on the small.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpYeekQkAdc