A Global Village

Nicked and edited from Education, Vol 120, #4:

A Global Village

A few things to put your life in perspective, and hopefully inspire acceptance, understanding and education...

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 (including both North and South America
8 Africans

52 females
48 males

30 white people
70 non-white people

89 heterosexuals
11 homosexuals

80 people would live in substandard housing.
50 people would suffer from malnutrition.
1 would be near death.
1 would be near birth.

6 people would possess 59% of the entire world's wealth.
All 6 of those people would be from the United States.
70 people would be unable to read.
1 -- only one -- would have a college education.
1 would own a computer.

Attitude

While I'm not much, generally, on Christian fundamentalist dogma, occasionally these bible-toting jokers get something right. Case in point: I've been thumping the idea of perspective, of attitude, into my students for years. The Chancellor of the Dallas Theological Seminary, Charles Swindoll, in addition to his right-wing, capital R Republican views, actually happens to make sense when it comes to how we, as people, can utterly alter our lives through the adjustment of something firmly within our own control: attitude.

Italics and bolds below are mine, but the words are all Swindoll. (A shout out to Taby, the new teacher in the staff room, for passing this passage along.)

Attitude
By Charles Swindoll

The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failure, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company... a church... a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past... We cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude... I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me, and 90% how I react to it. And so it is with you... We are in charge of our Attitudes.