If the World Were 100 People
What are you grateful for today?
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My Twitter name is @RachelleGardner.
My passion is partnering with authors to bring worthwhile books to publication. I started this blog as a way to create a community of writers, both published and seeking publication. I write about a wide variety of topics of interest to writers, and I consider the reader comments even more important than my own posts.
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Perspective.
On?
Grateful for the way the Lord is carrying some loved ones through a long and difficult journey.
My husband and my children (and that includes my son- and daughter-in love.)
I am grateful that I do not have to stare into the eyes of my starving children and tell them that there is nothing to eat.
More than that, I am grateful that while I was still a sinner, Christ died for me. (Rom. 5:8)
Thankful for your blog Rachelle. You don’t just provide lots of useful info. You’ve created a community of writers.
I am grateful for my family and my friends. My boyfriend. And above everything else, I am so happy to have a God how loves me and cares for me- protecting me, holding me, and guiding me.
Funny, I was just writing my best friend an e-mail, telling her what I was grateful for. I write historical fiction set in the Early Modern Period in Germany, specifically the Thirty Years War and I count my blessings every evening. We have nothing, absolutely nothing, to complain about this day in age.
We’re in the throes of moving house and I’ve been grumpy all week. Just being confronted with that question ‘What are you grateful for today?’ was enough to remind me I don’t have a thing to be grumpy about. Thank-you!
My kids, my three gorgeous grandchildren, my very understanding husband, for being warm on a cold day, for losing the 5 pounds I put on over Christmas. Thanks for reminding me. I got out of the wrong side of the bed today.
Grateful for reminders to be grateful today
This is a great example of how people misinterpret statistics. Obviously, if the world were a villiage of only 100 people, there would not be one with a college education, as the video states, because there wouldn’t be a college to grant the degree. Though I agree that we should be grateful for what the Lord has blessed us with, attempting to scale global statistics down to this level only confuses the issues because it doesn’t take into account the localized situation of individuals. In some areas of the world, a man with a manure hut is considered rich. We might pitty him for thinking that, but we would be wrong to do so.
I agree. The video makes the assumption that we should all be equal without regard to the historical, social, religious or geo-political realities that both create and remove opportunity.
Further, there seems no place in the video for free will and consequences. One particular though struck me. 1,000 years ago you could have flipped those statistics on their head. What is now in poverty was once the philosophical and scientific epicenter of the world, while much of the “west” was backward – feudal or tribal, hut dwelling and ignorant.
Of course, we are currently witnessing a global power shift. Slow, for now, but the innovators have become “consumers.” Unless that changes the rest is simply waiting.
What are you grateful for today?
I’m grateful that the world has a whole lot more than 100 people in it. Imagine how lonely that would be.
What I am grateful for today is God’s grace.
He reached down and changed my son. I didn’t know he needed changed. He is a good Christian man, doing good in his community.
But God took this introverted man with a great job in technology and changed his heart. He gave up a promotion and his family have committed to a two year stent in Haiti where he will manage a church and school. With minimum financial support.
We watched them go through security at the airport Wednesday morning. It really hit me that we are sending them off with our blessing because we trust God. There is no other way I could feel peace about my grands going to this Voodoo infested country.
Please God strengthen my faith.
My goodness that video really puts my life into perspective!
I’m grateful for my family and that we live in relative luxury.
For a writer, words don’t do justice … can’t express the depth of my gratitude to God!
Thank you for that beautiful and poignant presentation. We’ve so much to be grateful for and a reason to continue to improve our world.
I am grateful that Jesus died and rose for me. My family, good health, a job and food on the table. And that I can tells stories.
I remember a much younger me sitting at the table sobbing and saying “All I want is enough money to pay my rent and to have enough food in my pantry.”
When I grumble about how my books aren’t “noticed” by New York reviewers, or some other “Big Name Reviewer” or when I worry about this or that or the other in this publishing business, I stop and recall that much younger me.
Then I feel an overwhelming sense of gratitude for where I am now and feel suddenly quite happy.
I am grateful that I know what forgiveness is, and how to give it. Last year I learnt how to receive it.
Wife, daughter, puppy, extended family, friends, job. In that order, though there is overlap in the first five.
I’m grateful for insurance (medical, vision and dental), agents willing to take time to teach us the business one blog at a time (thanks Rachelle!), an understanding and supportive husband, and mostly Christ’s atonement that lets me know he’ll help me pick myself up, dust myself off, and keep moving forward.
I am always grateful for my family. This week I am especially grateful that I increased my ability to care for my diabetic son as he went through a rough week.
I am grateful that I will soon be heading out to the grocery store to purchase items to make a homemade pizza tonight for my husband. It’s the little things in life that make life meaningful.
I’m grateful that I’m alive and healthy and able to look forward to watching my daughter, son and husband play in a tennis tournament this weekend. My son, 28, will be partnering with his father 57. How awesome is that!
I’m grateful that I aced an interview yesterday for the position of a TV producer.
I’m grateful that God sent me the idea for my book of fiction. I feel it was a gift and it was waiting to surface at the right moment.
Overall, I’m grateful my family is healthy.
Opportunity–to get a college education. To write books. To love people. To choose to make the kind of difference in the world that will make these percentages change for the better in 2012 . . . 2015 . . . 2020 . . .
I am grateful for the absolutely beautiful sunrise, which restored my joy and perspective (along with this innovative video). God loves me through – and often restores clarity through- nature. I am skippingly grateful.
I am so thankful for God’s amazing grace!
I realize that may sound trite or cliche’…but it is neither.
His unending redemptive love for His children brings fresh amazement, daily!
Thanks for sharing this… good food for thought…
I couldn’t help but draw the comparison that with only 5 people of the 100 being from North America, that would make one of those 5 half-Canadian (since there are 10X more people in the US than in Canada).
If half a person represents 34 million people in this video, that means that more than that number are suffering from AIDs, or dying from starvation.
Sometimes we have to simplify an issue to gain a perspective on how truly big it is.
While it is not scientifically accurate, it certainly helps me remember that there are likely twice as many people with AIDs or dying of hunger than there are Canadians.
Thoughts like this produce a call to action in my life, where overgeneralizations are easily ignored.
Snuggle-buggling with my four daughters, with a fire crackling in the fireplace, on a TN “snowday.”
That God exchanges my robes of shame for those of Grace and Beauty. For sobriety and life.
What am I grateful for? Everything! Because even my trials seem to come from abundance.
I’m thankful for the Lord’s blessings on me and my family; our health, well being, home,cars,jobs, schools our kids attend, family members, His protection, His wonderful Salvation, church, living in TN, living in America, our freedoms. The list does goes on.
:0)
I am grateful for free education
for the life we have been granted with.
I’m grateful to be in that 1% but wonder why more of us are not reaching out and sharing our wealth, our health, our love and compassion with the rest of the world.
I am grateful Rachel that like many others you help to spread this kind of message.
Because it wouldn’t actually resolve them. Even if we gave it all. What resolves them is God, the message of Jesus Christ, and freedom.
AMERICA
My family and friends.
Great message!
I’m humbled to be so blessed and grateful to pay it forward.
I’m thankful for the stability my relationship with God brings and for my family and friends.
I’m grateful that I live in a country that provided me the opportunity to be that one college graduate and that I am allowed to be one of the six Buddhists without being persecuted or repressed.
Bonnie Ferrante
Every day I am grateful to be upright and functioning. I am thankful that I am able to provide for my own basic needs and still have the means to reach out to help others. God helps those who help themselves and relies on us to pass it forward.
Family, flannel sheets and snoring Labradors.
I am grateful for freedom. Both in this great country and in Christ.
I am grateful for you… I have gained such insight from reading your posts!
I am grateful for my husband, his strength, his character, his passion!
I am grateful for my children, my home and delicious red wine!
I am grateful for the wintertime, for this means spring will be super sweet!
I was going to say that I am very grateful for the life I have right now, but after watching the video, I am grateful for my entire life. I have had problems, but I have always had the basic necessities.
<3
jello.
Life! Even with all it’s ups and downs!
Health and family.
I am grateful that God has given humans the ability to IMAGINE, for with this gift one day the world will exist without fear and intolerance, and we will ALL finally be able to exercise our free will to be happy any way we choose to.
I am also grateful for the song “Imagine”.
“Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions.”
–Albert Einstein
Fascinating statistics Rachelle, thanks for sharing!
I’m grateful to have been born an American.
I’m grateful I get to pay taxes. It’s one helluva a sweet opportunity!
Thanks, Rachelle!! You’ve made such an important point.
What am I NOT grateful for today? Off the top of my head, nothing comes to mind. Wow!
At this moment, I am so grateful for the cup of white tea that has steeped it’s five minutes and is piping hot with just the right amount of honey!
We, as God’s people, are required to do just 2 things: Love God with all your heart, mind and soul. Love others as yourself.If we could do just these two things…..just imaagine…..
Healthy children and glorious Florida sunshine. It’s the middle of winter and our weather is in the 80′s.