Count Your Blessings

You may have seen this before but it's worth adding here I think.

If we could shrink the earth's population to a village of precisely 100 people, with all existing human ratios remaining the same, it would look something like this:

• 57 Asians
• 21 Europeans
• 14 from the Western Hemisphere, both north and south
• 8 Africans
• 52 would be female
• 48 would be male
• 70 would be non-white
• 30 would be white
• 70 would be non-Christian
• 30 would be Christian
• 89 would be heterosexual
• 11 would be homosexual
• 6 people would possess 59% of the entire world's wealth and all 6 would be from the United States.
• 80 would live in substandard housing
• 70 would be unable to read
• 50 would suffer from malnutrition
• 1 would be near death
• 1 would be near birth
• 1 (yes, only 1) would have a college education
• 1 would own a computer

That's the world from a compressed perspective.

The following is also something to ponder...

• If you woke up this morning with more health than illness...you are way ahead of the million who will unnecessarily not survive this week.
• If you have never experienced the danger of mortal combat, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture, or the pangs of starvation ... you are ahead of 500 million people who know these things all too well in the world.
• If you can attend a religious event without fear of harassment, arrest, torture, or death...you are more fortunate than three billion people in the world who cannot.
• If you have some food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof overhead and a place to sleep...you are way richer than 75% of other people in this world.
• If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, and spare change in a dish someplace ... you are among the top 8% of the world's wealthiest people.
• If your parents are still alive and still married... you are very rare, even in the advanced United States and Canada.
• If you can read this message, you are fortunate because over two billion people in the world cannot read at all, and never will.

Sources: United Nations World Census Reports

...dave
It is not the man who has little, but he who desires more, that is poor. -Seneca