My Two Cents

Entry #17- The Starving Children in Africa

"I see you, trying to sneak that chip off your plate into the trash can. Don't you dare. Think about the starving children in Africa. If you throw that chip away, I will be forced to call the Food Police and have you prosecuted."

Okay, yes, I'm sorry. I didn't know that me eating my last chip will somehow alleviate the suffering of every single starving child in the world. Next time I'll think before throwing it away because I'm so full that my abdomen is about to burst out of my shirt. Which, by the way, would not be a very pretty sight.

This entry, as you may have already guessed, is about the people who pull the "Starving African Child" on you every time you so much as throw away half a grape, or try to force you to be happy because "there are people in the world who have it worse."

Please understand that I'm not trying to minimalize world hunger or poverty here. I know that there are many, many people out there who were simply born in the wrong place at the wrong time, and are in crappy situations through no fault of their own. I'll always be grateful that I was born in a place where I have access to food and water, and have the opportunity to live a healthy life. I'll always try to help out people in need whenever I see them.

But I'll never tell someone that they can't get upset at something because they have a good life overall. I'll never tell someone that they need to finish every single last bite on their plate even if they want to throw up just because there are people out there who don't have enough food.

My eight year old cousin, has an interesting perspective on this. When I was with her the other day, she was playing with her legos and ended up breaking one of those minifigures. You know, one of those little lego people.

But my cousin absolutely treasures her legos. She protects them with her life. So of course, she was fairly upset when she broke one of them, and the poor kid looked like she was trying not to cry. But my aunt, her mom, told her that she shouldn't be upset, because there were kids in the world that didn't even have toys. So my cousin said, without a hint of sarcasm "Then we should go over there and give all our stuff to them."

Cousin-1; Aunt -0 .

Okay, so let's break this down.

Basically, the core message I'm trying to get across here is that telling someone they can't be sad because other people have it worse is like telling someone they can't be happy because other people have it better.

My aunt telling my cousin that she shouldn't be upset because she broke her lego is like me going to my cousin's house on christmas day when she first got her toys and telling her that there was no reason to be happy, because other kids in the world have money to get much cooler toys.

Now, I am not saying that people should get whatever they want when they ask for it and that they should say "Screw it. I don't care if there are other kids don't have toys, I'm going to get XXX even if it means there won't be enough money left over for my brother to get what he wants".

I'm also not saying that you should not care about other people's problems.

My cousin was completely okay when my aunt told her she couldn't get another minifigure. She's a sharer. If she saw someone who was bored or lonely or had no toys, she'd give them up.

I just have a problem with my aunt telling my cousin to stop being upset. The thing is, people get upset. It's human nature. It's okay to get upset over things that may be stupid or insignificant to other people. Constantly comparing your problems to someone else's or someone doing it to you is unhelpful and irritating, to be totally honest.

The same goes for when people tell me that I need to finish all my food because of, and I quote "the starving children in Africa."

First of all, why do people always reference Africa when they say things like this? Seriously.

It's not like everyone living in Africa is poor and starving. I'm not saying that there aren't starving children in Africa, because there are and they need help, but Africa is not this run-down, disease-ridden continent that everybody seems to like portraying it as. People seem to care more about insulting places like Africa than actually helping them. Starving doesn't always mean a skinny person living in a hut without food. People are starving all over the world. If you really cared about people in danger, you would care about them all.

And if you do care so very much about starving people and want to help them, then do something. All it tells me when you harass a genuinely sad person by telling them that someone has it worse is that you'd rather look like a good person than act like one.

Volunteer in a soup kitchen. Go to one of these third world countries that you're preaching about a start a program for the poor. Do something that will actually have an impact on these people instead of harassing innocent people who are full and choose to throw away a chip. Or someone that is being bullied and suffers from depression.

I'm not going to deny that there are ungrateful, selfish people out there who take their lives for granted and don't have a damn about anything but themselves, including those that are worse off than them. But those kinds of people can fall into any category. Black, white, brown, rich, poor, etc. Those people don't apply exclusively to one group. I believe that humility, empathy, and a willingness to help others are important traits in every person.