:: On the whole, things look pretty good ::

Next time you think your world is falling apart, have a look at this. You might feel better.

If we could shrink the earth's population to a village of precisely 100 people, with all the existing human ratios remaining the same, it would look something like the following:

There would be:

• 57 Asians
• 21 Europeans
• 14 from the Western Hemisphere, both north and south
• 8 Africans
• 
  
• 52 would be female
• 48 would be male
• 
  
• 70 would be non-white
• 30 would be white

• 70 would be non-Christian
• 30 would be Christian

• 89 would be heterosexual
• 11 would be homosexual

• 6 people would possess 59% of the entire world's wealth and all 6 would be from the United States.

• 80 would live in substandard housing

• 70 would be unable to read

• 50 would suffer from malnutrition

• 1 would be near death; 1 would be near birth

• 1 (yes, only 1) would have a college education

• 1 would own a computer

When one considers our world from such a compressed perspective, the need for acceptance, understanding and education becomes glaringly apparent.

The following is also something to ponder...

If you woke up this morning with more health than illness...you are more blessed than the million who will not survive this week.

If you have never experienced the danger of battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture, or the pangs of starvation...you are ahead of 500 million people in the world.

If you can attend a church meeting without fear of harassment, arrest, torture, or death...you are more blessed than three billion people in the world.

If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof overhead and a place to sleep...you are richer than 75% of this world.

If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, and spare change in a dish someplace ... you are among the top 8% of the world's wealthy.

If your parents are still alive and still married ... you are very rare, even in Canada and the United States.

If you can read this message, you just received a double blessing in that someone was thinking of you, and furthermore, you are more blessed than over two billion people in the world that cannot read at all.

by Phillip M Harter, MD, FACEP

Stanford University, School of Medicine

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