Something sad happened today. Even though I don't know who this person is, but my cousins' friend died. I think she was around my age. She had acute lymphocytic leukemia, which is a worse form of leukemia because it directly attacks the lymphocytes, which help in fighting disease.
It's hard to think about young people like me dying because, well, we are still pretty young. In the mid-morning of our lives. We are supposed to live a long time, right? It made me sad. That could have been me. It could have been my brother or sister.
But it wasn't.
It's almost rare to find with a chronic illness like that, at least where I am, which is pretty amazing since we often hear of children who are confined to hospitals for their lives. They are born there, they live there, they die there. It's so tragically sad.
The more I read my anatomy book, the more I read about thousands of different problems that can go wrong in your body. And they only highlight about 4 per body system. But there are probably at least 50 per system, and even more miscellaneous ones. There are so many things that can go wrong. Probably more things can go wrong than can go right.
Yet often we don't experience these problems, or any. I am a prime example. I don't have a birth defect or a learning disability, I am not chronically ill, or ever ill, I do not take any medication and I am generally healthy and happy with my physical self. I have it a lot easier than other people, and I'm really lucky. In fact, I am at the peak of my physical fitness.
Yet I often complain more than children in hospitals, or children in wheelchairs, or even people who have a hard time doing something that I find easy.
I really have it great. And I forget that a lot. Sometimes we can all forget it. Sometimes we are caught up in little things like losing a few pounds, trying to fit in a few more activities in the day, or hoping for a little more money in the paycheck.
But I think maybe I - we - should step back, and put our lives in line with others. Not with other people who have it just as good as you, but with the rest of the world - think macro. If you want, look up some figures on health and income around the world. You'll be unpleasantly surprised.
If we remove ourselves from ourselves, we can see the world from an almost omniscient view. And we will see ourselves as rich compared to others.
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