HOW TO LIVE A SIMPLER LIFE
I've been poor (monetarily) my entire life and I've never really wanted more. Of course I was lucky because I grew up in a poor household. My Dad worked two jobs and my Mom worked part time from 10 a.m. until 3 p.m. so she could be home for us kids before and after school. My parents worked this hard just so we as a family didn't have to go without the necessities of life like food, shelter, clothes. a car and medical attention when it was needed. Although we didn't have much more I always knew my parents loved and cared about me. Growing up like this as I got older that I realized didn't need a lot of stuff to be happy so being poor has never bothered me.
However, it's not that I wouldn't like to know what it's like to have whatever I wanted. To own my own home with all the newest and up to date trappings, have a brand new car, buy the latest gizmo's, go some where without thinking about how much it's going to cost, go on a fancy vacation, splurge on something completely useless and then to even have money left over in the bank. WOW, what a concept!
But when ever I do think I might like to try that lifestyle I always remember this one atrocious and undeniable fact: Every year on this bountiful earth 10 million children under the age of 12 die from malnutrition or outright starvation! And that's in a GOOD year!
In a bad the number of dead kids goes up to as much as 15 million. That's a child unnecessarily dead every 2 to 3 seconds, 24 hours a day, 365 ¼ days a year, every year without interruption. Death for these unfortunate children does not take a vacation. Deaths that's may not all be completely preventable but the number certainly could be brought way, way down.
Consider this; garbologist in the USA studying what we as a nation say Americans on the average throw away 25% of all the food they buy. 25%! With so many not just kids but people starving in the world this is an outrageous amount of wasted food. How many starving people could live all year just off of our garbage alone? How many less starved to death children would there be each year if they had access the food we thoughtlessly throw away each and every day? 25% of our food totally wasted is a mind boggling amount.
And that's just our food. We as a country throw away millions of household items that aren't even broken. They're thrown away simply because something better(?) has come along. There's nothing wrong with the one we own but there's this newer, prettier, slicker model we just have to have. Does this even make any sense? How many of the truly impoverish people of the world would not only be grateful but actually love to have our still working “old” throwaways which would make their lives immeasurably better? Million, hundred of millions and maybe even a billion or so?
This is why I don't mind being poor forgoing all the newest and fanciest things. This is why I only buy or own no more than what I actually need to live a simple life. This is why I eat everything I buy because I do not want some unfortunate kid to starve to death on my account.
So how about this folks; buy only the food you are really going to eat and if there are leftovers then eat them the next day. Hell, a lot of food tastes even better when it's re-heated. If you have something a little older but still in good working condition keep it for just another year or two or even 3.
Just by doing these two simple things then maybe, just maybe next year only 9 million children will die from malnourishment and starvation. Then the year after only 8 million dead kids. If we kept this going, I know it'll never be 0 but, maybe we could cut it in half or even by ¾ in the next 10 or ever 20 years because 10 to 15 million unnecessarily and mostly preventable dead children is just way too many, especially when there is enough food and other stuff to prevent this ever occurring non-stop daily every 3 seconds atrocity.
Remember it is only an extremely lucky accident of your birth, of time and place, that that ain't you and your kids living in abject poverty starving to DEATH! I remember this horrible fact every single day of my life and am intensely grateful for every thing I have because, “There but for the grace of God, go I.”
In the time it took you to read this missive about 80 to 100 children died of starvation because,
EVERY 3 SECONDS ..............................