Be more than rich

Do you ever have moments that seem to smack you upside the head? Bringing you back to reality and reminding you to stop self-obsessing. The world is bigger than Whistler, than my leaky car, my job, and my social life.

I sound like a World Vision commercial but how often do we glance at the swollen bellies and change the channel in favour of The Simpson’s? It’s easier for me to believe that my “world” is the world.

It’s sad but most of us don’t think about the world at large until Christmas. Perhaps it’s a throw back for sentimentality. I heard an interested fact the other day – that America spends $40 billion on ice cream every year. It’s an amount that could put a significant dent in world hunger.

Did you know that 852 million people across the world are hungry? Every day more than 16,000 children die from hunger related causes – one child every five seconds. How much money do you have in your pocket? More than one billion people live on less than one dollar a day.

While every country in the world has the potential of growing enough food to feed itself, 54 nations currently do not produce enough food to feed their populations, nor can they afford to import the necessary commodities to make up the gap. Most of these countries are in sub-Saharan Africa.

I also heard that eight per cent of the world’s population owns a car. When the other 92 per cent looks at my beat up Dodge Shadow, they think rich. The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the poorest 48 nations is less than the wealth of the world’s three richest people combined. About 20 per cent of the world’s population live in developed nations but consume 86 per cent of the world’s resources.

It’s easy for me to preach while sitting at my desk in my warm office while snacking on Christmas cookies. I can spout of facts about world hunger like I’m actually making a difference to the hungry child in Africa. But it does remind me to seek perspective. I can let the facts bounce off my capitalist armour or I can react.

Do you consider yourself rich? Blessed? There is nothing wrong with wealth in itself but with it comes responsibility. We are stewards of our wealth. I’ll admit I feel a bit sheepish about my Chai Latte. I’m not saying we throw on our sack clothes, walk barefoot to work and give all of our savings to Africa. Let’s be realistic.

What would our world look like if we stopped, realized our wealth, and tried to live with generosity? When a lot of the world looks at us, they think rich. How was that drink of water? Rich. That bed? Rich. Rich. Rich.

This is the point where we look for the sales pitch. Who do I write the cheque to? What’s the latest cause I can sign up for? That’s just it – the whole issue of richness is deeper than the latest craze.

Here’s a question that I am trying to ask myself. What would Whistler look like if we lived generously? What if I tried to live more generously? What if we were known as a community of generous people?