The Global Conversation

Tag: poverty

  • Why isn’t “enough” enough?

    Every day, an estimated 20,864 people die from hunger-related causes in our world, according to statistics provided by The World Bank.

    Some 80 million people, around 43% of America’s working-age adults, didn’t go to the doctor or access other medical services last year because of the cost, according to the Commonwealth Fund’s Biennial Health Insurance Survey.

    And while it is difficult to pinpoint exact numbers, a study of homelessness in 50 cities found that in virtually every city, the city’s officials estimated the numbers of homeless people greatly exceeded the number of emergency shelter and transitional housing spaces.  And of the 1.9 billion children from the developing world, there are an estimated 640 million (1 in 3) without adequate shelter.

    The average annual income for school teachers around the globe spans anywhere from a meager $10,604 in Egypt to $45,755 in Singapore (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development).

    However….

    At the same time, in Limburg, Germany, Bishop Franz Peter Tebartz-van Elst was busy renovating his lavish residence to the tune of $43 million dollars, an indulgence that has earned him the nickname “Bishop of Bling” and which also led to his suspension from his Bishop duties by Pope Francis.  By the way, interestingly, the Vatican’s wealth has been valued to be between $10 billion and $15 billion.

    On another note, just two years ago, people from around the world excitedly turned on their television sets in order to catch a privileged glimpse of Prince William and Kate Middleton’s extravagant $34 million royal wedding.

    And let’s not forget to include in our observations the number of golf fans who continue to be mesmerized by Tiger Woods’ extraordinary ability to sweep the floor with his competitors, which earns him a cool $78 million a year.

    In addition, we have billionaire timeshare mogul David Seigel, who is continuing to move forward with construction of what is being touted as the largest home in America, measuring a whopping 90,000 square feet and costing upwards of $65 million upon its completion.

    I know, I know.  Don’t judge.  Love what is.   Pick yourself up by your bootstraps.  Suck it up.  Everyone has the same opportunities and choices.  Oh, and I almost forgot the best one of all:  When life gives you lemons, made lemonade.

    Well, those spiritual and motivational platitudes are easy to roll off the tongue, but I’m not so sure they are particularly helpful to someone whose last meal was yesterday or perhaps the day before or maybe even the day before that, nor are they soothing to the elementary school teacher who holds down an additional part-time job in order to pay her bills, nor are they useful to the homeless person who has been sleeping on the streets for a longer period of time than most of us could ever possibly imagine doing.

    Does everyone truly have the same opportunities in our current system the way we have constructed it?  Are we all afforded the same pool of choices from which to choose?  As we all know, with money comes power.  And with power comes the ability to be the rule-makers.  And the end result is not surprising — those who get to make the rules tend to do so in a fashion that benefits them.

    In a world with enough inherent resources to take care of the needs of all of humanity, why is there not enough to go around?   How is it that “enough” is not actually enough?

    I guess the answer to the “why” question may be easier to answer than the ensuing question:  What can we do to change that?  Surely, there must be something.  Is there a way to account for and then distribute the planet’s natural commodities in a way that would more evenly benefit all human beings?

    How far back do we have to unravel the current paradigm to begin rebuilding a system that works for more than just a few?  What will it take to create a world where grotesquely huge houses and disturbingly overpaid athletes will be a thing of the past because they will no longer represent who we know ourselves to truly be?

    When will “enough” actually demonstrate itself to be enough…for everybody?

    (Lisa McCormack is the Managing Editor & Administrator of The Global Conversation. She is also a member of the Spiritual Helper team at www.ChangingChange.net, a website offering emotional and spiritual support. To connect with Lisa, please e-mail her at Lisa@TheGlobalConversation.com.)

  • Let’s get to the root of the problem, shall we?

    According to UNICEF, only 58% of secondary-aged children world-wide regularly attend school. In highly industrialized areas, like North America and Europe, that percentage rises to 92%. But in areas like Africa, those numbers fall to less than 30%. Two thirds of the world’s illiterate are woman. In some countries, it is even illegal for young girls to receive an education.

    The lack of education has a cascading effect on the level of poverty. Consider these facts:

    – Women in impoverished nations who have a secondary education have an average of 3 children. Those with less education have an average of 7.

    – In developing countries, an additional year of education has the potential to increase yearly earnings by 10%.

    – Women with a primary education level are 13% more likely to understand that condom use can help prevent the spread of HIV.

    The level of poverty has a domino effect on the health and well being of the world’s population.

    – More than 6 million children a year die from completely preventable causes like diarrhea and malaria. Most of these children are in impoverished nations with limited access to health care and clean drinking water.

    – Another 6 million children under the age of five die every year from malnutrition.

    – Almost 39% of the world’s population survives on less than $2 a day. More than 1 billion of those survive on less than $1 a day. To put that in perspective, someone in the US who is paying $589/month for a car loan for their gas-guzzling Hummer is paying every month almost twice what some people earn in an entire year.

    In this day and age, numbers like this are almost unfathomable. Perhaps a better word would be unconscionable. Yet this is the very real situation for more than a third of the world’s population. And the gap between the “haves” and the “have-nots” is getting larger, even in industrialized and prosperous nations like the US. A 2013 report by the ALF-CIO places the average salary of a CEO in a US company at 364 times that of the average worker.  Even in Poland, a CEO makes 28 times what the average worker earns in one year.

    How we got to this point would—and does—fill volumes. Countless theses have been written on the causes of poverty and an untold number of studies have been done on how to eradicate it. Unfortunately, none of those efforts will succeed no matter how many times we try, no matter what variations we enact into policy, no matter how strict we make our laws, no matter how many social organizations we form to combat poverty because none of them address the root cause of the problem: the steadfast belief in the absolute truth of the Five Fallacies about Life.

    1. Humans are separate from each other.

    2. There is not enough of what human beings need to be happy.

    3. To get enough of the stuff there is not enough of, human beings must compete with each other.

    4. Some human beings are better than other human beings.

    5. It is appropriate for human beings to resolve severe differences created by all the other fallacies by killing each other.

    Fortunately, the masters down through the ages have given us a very simple way to overcome our beliefs, since we seem so unwilling to change them. It is most commonly called “The Golden Rule” and it was first found in the Vedic tradition of India almost 5000 years ago. Virtually every faith and religion, every philosophical and spiritual practice that man has created has some version of this truly insightful statement. Simply put, “Treat others the way you want to be treated.”

    The reason that following this simple rule would change life as we know it overnight is due to the fact that, at the very root of the matter, every one of us wants to be treated exactly the same way! Every one of us wants to live our life as we see fit, according to the beliefs that we hold dear, without undue interference from others.

    If every one of us followed the Golden Rule, there would be no need for laws, no need for governments, no need for armies, no need for nations. There would be no poverty, no killing, no abuse, no wars, no rape, no discrimination, no wanton destruction of the environment.

    I would not kill you because I would not want to be killed.

    I would not pollute your water supply because I would not want my water supply polluted.

    I would not let you go hungry because I would not want to go hungry.

    I would not interfere with your choice of who to marry because I would not want someone to interfere with my choice.

    I would make sure you had access to all the knowledge you needed to live your life as you saw fit because I want access to all the knowledge I need to live my life as I see fit.

    “But that will never happen!” I can hear the naysayers cry already. “You’ll never get everyone to follow the Golden Rule!”

    You don’t have to.

    The Golden Rule is a unilateral, unconditional command. It does not say “Treat others the way you want to be treated only if they treat you that way first” or “only if they treat you that way in return” or “only if they’re the same color/religion/orientation/socioeconomic level/etc. as you”. It says simply “Treat other people the way you want to be treated.” Period.  End of discussion.

    You are to follow the Golden Rule in spite of how other people treat you. You are not to sit around and wait for someone else to follow the Golden Rule before you begin to follow it.

    When you do this, small miracles happen. People start to like the way you are treating them and they begin to take notice and they begin to imitate how you treat others and they begin to treat others the way you treated them. With Love. Unconditional Love.

    When unconditional Love is given out, it multiplies. It is contagious. It spreads. Because it is healing to be Loved unconditionally. Just as when one cell of your body begins to heal, the cells around it begin to heal, so too will the human race heal when Loved unconditionally.

    Are you willing to be the first cell in your world to heal?

    Shelly(Shelly Strauss is a civil rights activist and speaker.  In addition to becoming an ordained minister, she has written 20+ novels and is the “resident visionary” at One Spirit Project.  Shelly is also a spiritual helper on the ChangingChange website, offering support and guidance to people faced with unexpected and unwelcome change .)

  • A path to the new world

    What is the message that we need to transmit to future generations of this planet — so that our children and all children to come are Self-loving beings with fully functional Self-Esteem, and capable of creating a joyful and healthy world for themselves?

    Where are we going? 

    The market economy is the modern GODDESS on Earth. This is the underlying message of this civilization to future generations of this planet. In the name of a “healthy economy,” we devastate the planet which is the home of future generations for millennia to come, and our most precious human qualities like compassion and solidarity, because our economy has to “grow” today.

    Huge debts run the global economy and our homes today. The global credit stock doubled from $57 trillion to $109 trillion in just ten years (from 2000 to 2010). It will need to double again to an incredible $210 trillion by 2020 in order to provide the necessary credit-driven growth. It is debt that governs our world.

    Our world—where one billion people, one-seventh of the total  population, now lives in total poverty—annually spends about $1.5 trillion on military expenditures.  As long as the strongest economies of the world enrich their national budgets with exorbitant earnings from its arms exports, there will be wars. And as long as the so-called “civilized world” silently watches the planet’s poorest countries import the latest “how-to-kill-your-neighbor” techniques, instead to spend money on the newest technology and know-how to make a living and become self-sufficient, there will not be peace and prosperity on Earth.

    The golden age of survival. This is the world of our immature ego. After millions of years of evolution, we still stand on the law of the jungle in which there is no value greater and no ideal cherished more than “survival at any cost.” And the more powerful and richer we are as we survive, the better. But as long as we continue just surviving, instead of really living, we will continue to struggle in fear. And as long as we live in fear, the law of the jungle remains our highest ideal. Debt, poverty, and pain pave the way for future generations—instead of happiness, prosperity, and joy.

    As within, so without. No human being with Self-Esteem will cheat, lie, steal, kill, abuse other forms of life, or otherwise harm another, or be indifferent to his/her environment. The shape of our current personal and global affairs directly reflects the actual state of our individual and collective lack of Self-Esteem. If this were not the case, we would all live in harmony and peace.

    The answer to the problems of our civilization lies primarily in our own approach to ourselves. This is where each of us must begin.

    When I look at our world today, I am still overwhelmed when there is another bomb exploding in a bus or town square, another escalation of war, another aerial bombardment “in the name of democracy”, another pollution disaster, another political or financial corruption scandal, another child murder, another school killing . . . and another . . . another act of destruction happening somewhere on Earth. It is as if the shockwaves of destruction are growing faster and faster, hitting us harder and harder.

    And yet I cannot help noticing that in all the confusion and chaos lies a certain sense of purpose, and with all the economic, political, and civil turmoil taking place in various parts of our planet, I detect an increased awareness, a rise of consciousness, a cleansing process underway, which will lead us to a new world of peace and tranquility.

    It is in these turbulent times that each of us bears full responsibility for the decisions we make everyday—as we choose between love and fear, Self-Esteem and Self-denial, between sheer survival at the expense of all other forms of life on the one side and meaningful and fulfilling life in the interest of all on the other.

    Now is the time to ask the fundamental question: What do I really believe in? Now is the right moment to follow the Spark of Light within and use our spiritual powers to help co-create our New World.

    “Your cure is in you,
    but you do not see;
    Your sickness is from you,
    but you do not feel;
    You allege that you are a small star,
    while you contain the whole cosmos.”

    ~ Sidi Mohammad Al Jamal – Sufi Master

    (Vladimir Bayer lives in Prague where he work as translator/consultant/writer. He is also the author of “From Darkness to Light: A Path to The New World.”)

    (If you would like to contribute an article you have authored to the Guest Column, please submit it to our Managing Editor, Lisa McCormack, for possible publication in this space. Not all submissions can be published, due to the number of submissions and sometimes because of other content considerations, but all are encouraged. Send submissions to Lisa@TheGlobalConversation.com. Please label the topic: “Guest Column.”)

  • Florida has much bigger problems
    than George Zimmerman

    Contrary to the way in which the media is portraying it, Central Florida actually has problems much larger than the recent “not guilty” verdict in the George Zimmerman case.  And one of the most significant and glaring dilemmas is the rising number of human beings who have no place to live and very little, if any, food to eat.  In other words, a growing number of individuals who are what we have collectively classified as “homeless.”

    While overly ambitious newscasters clamoring for ratings continue to spoon-feed the drama of this high-profile Zimmerman murder trial to an audience all too willing to devote their free time and undivided attention to their television sets, an estimated 35,000 to 40,000 people in the state of Florida are spending their days and nights on the streets, probably much more concerned, I presume, with where their next meal is coming from than the status of George Zimmerman’s criminal case.

    I find it shocking that one criminal case can cause thousands of people across the United States to leave their homes and stand in solidarity to protest what they believe to be an injustice, but the fact that last year 633,782 people in the United States alone were without a place to call home does not even create a tiny ripple.

    Where is everybody?

    How are we choosing what is important to us…and what is not?

    Is it that we assuming that someone else is taking care of this?

    In the City of Orlando specifically, efforts by local activist groups to organize food offerings for our community’s homeless population in downtown parks have been strategically and legally blocked by local government at every angle over the past several years.  The city has designated blue boxes painted on the sidewalks where homeless individuals are permitted to ask for and receive money.  If they do so outside the blue lines, they are promptly arrested.

    We can’t feed the hungry – except where it has been deemed legally acceptable.

    We can’t offer financial assistance to the poorest of poor – except where it has been deemed legally acceptable.

    And these people have nowhere to go – except where it has been deemed legally acceptable for them to go.

    Maybe I’m wrong.  Maybe we should and do live in a world where it truly is each man or woman for him or herself.  Maybe those men and women standing on the street corner with signs pleading for money don’t deserve the extra dollar or two I have tucked in the drink holder of my car and I should just continue to act as though I do not even see them.  Perhaps that seemingly able-bodied man IS perfectly capable of getting a job and I shouldn’t enable his obvious choice not to work by throwing him a few bucks.  Perhaps I should question why those souls who have come to share a portion of life’s journey with me have not experienced their own abundance in the way that I have.  After all, they must have done something wrong to get to this point and this place, right?  And finally, maybe it is entirely possible that the George Zimmerman trial is way more important than any of this, and that is where I should be focusing my thoughts and energy, as thousands of others are choosing to do.

    I don’t think so.

    I have never been homeless.  But I have had times in my own life where stretching $20 in the grocery store for a week’s worth of meals for my family was a stark reality.  And it is not difficult for me to recall many turning points in my life which pivoted upon a compassionate helping hand from someone else.  So I’m just noticing.  I’m just taking a closer look at what we as a society appear to be fixated on, what issues cause us take a stand, which events in life we choose to outwardly define ourselves by…and which ones we do not.   I’m just noticing and wondering how we got here, why we are here, and asking:  What will it take to change it?

    “When someone enters your life unexpectedly,
    look for the gift that person has come to receive from you…
    I HAVE SENT YOU NOTHING BUT ANGELS.”
    “Conversations with God” – Book 2

    (Lisa McCormack is the Managing Editor & Administrator of The Global Conversation. She is also a member of the Spiritual Helper team at www.ChangingChange.net, a website offering emotional and spiritual support. To connect with Lisa, please e-mail her at Lisa@TheGlobalConversation.com.)

  • How to reconcile having more with helping those in poverty?

    How do I reconcile my desire to do and have more in my life with my desire to help those who struggle just to survive? I know there is unlimited abundance in the world because God is unlimited, yet for every dollar I spend on something I want just for fun, that dollar could go to someone who desperately needs it for basic necessities. I give to people on the street and to charity, and I want to do more… but I also want to live a fabulous, fun, free life, without feeling guilty about it. Please help!… Elizabeth

    Dear Elizabeth… Please know that your question is one that I also ask myself as I continually work to choose the highest and best way to express Who I Am. It’s an age-old question, really, how to come to terms with this gap between the “haves” and the “have nots”.

    Dr. Wayne Dyer said something very interesting once: he said he believes that if we could take all the money in the world, put it in an airplane, then distribute it evenly around the world, in a very short time it would end up right back where it started. What he was saying was, we can only embody that which we have in our consciousness, so the money would end up back in the hands of those who had it in the first place. If I have a wealth consciousness, I will continue to attract wealth. If I have a poverty consciousness, I will continue to attract poverty… unless I decide to dig deep and root out the Sponsoring Thoughts that cause it. Some people feel they are not worthy of being wealthy. Others feel that there is something inherently wrong with being wealthy. Society itself gives us many mixed signals about this, so it’s no wonder people harbor guilty feelings around having a lot of money.

    However, as you said, God is unlimited and there is unlimited abundance in the world. I whole-heartedly believe this is true. I also believe that God is Omni-present and in every single person, rich or poor. So to me that means every person has the same unlimited potential for abundance that God has… but only to the degree that they know it.

    Another thing Dr. Dyer said that I never forgot: we can’t feel bad enough to make someone else feel better. This is in no way meant to be a callous remark. Rather, he is rightly saying that we do much more good for others when we are in a positive frame of mind than when we are in a negative one. When we are in alignment with God and feeling great, that’s when we are open to receiving inspiration to really make a difference in the world.

    At the end of the day, it is up to each of us to discern how we choose to be in relation to everyone… and everything, including money. The opposites of wealth and poverty here in the Realm of the Physical are here to offer us yet one more way to decide and to declare, to express and to experience Who We Are.

    (Annie Sims is the Global Director of CWG Advanced Programs, is a Conversations With God Coach and author/instructor of the CWG Online School. To connect with Annie, please email her at Annie@TheGlobalConversation.com

    (If you would like a question considered for publication, please submit your request to:  Advice@TheGlobalConversation.com where our team is waiting to hear from you.)