The Daily Cost

As I sit in a comfortable office chair in air conditioned comfort surrounded by kind people and a tree covered in blossoms outside the window, I can't help but be overwhelmed with gratitude and think about the billions of people who are uncomfortable right now, those without chairs and computers and good views and peanut butter sandwiches for lunch.

In the map above, all the countries shaded dark red are those that have 61-80% of their population living below the international poverty line. Those in bright red have 41-60% of their population living below the international poverty line, and those in the dark blue (like the US) have less than 2% living below the poverty line.

What is the international poverty line? The World Bank and UN have done extensive work to fairly establish this threshold. It is currently about $1.25 in US dollars. To put this in perspective, I calculated about how much it costs me to live each day. In simply food and housing, it costs about $15 a day. This is the some of the cheapest housing on campus and cheapest food. The cost of tuition here at the cheapest private school in the nation averages to about $19 a day (BYU students--it costs about 80 cents an hour to be here).
Education +food+housing =$34 a day.

As long we're dividing by 365, what about the costs of daily living around the world? The costs of poverty, the costs of no education, the costs of famine, of abuse, of corrupt governments, of unequal distribution of wealth. A college student may be spending $34 a day, while 17,000 children die every day out of hunger alone. 1.02 billion people go to bed hungry every night.

Tomorrow as my roommates and I clean up our apartment and leave for the summer, we will clean out the fridge and throw away perfectly good food. The cliche phrase is, "What about all those children in Africa?" And it is hard not to tear up when thinking about them.

We can make a difference.

Faith

F is for Feedback, not Failure

Doesn't it seem that some people do so easily what takes you extreme effort to accomplish? We see people who, because of their natural abilities, can do well without even trying (It seems BYU is especially full of these people). People who ace tests without studying or sit down and play the piano like Liszt without practicing. We think, "I'll never be like them," or, "Why does it take me twice as long to achieve half the results that others get?"

This kind of thinking is called discouragement. It is one of the biggest barriers of our success.

Most often success is not a result of giftedness or natural abilities. Success doesn't come easy. In fact, success almost always comes after failure.

Thankfully, failure is never wasted. It helps you be humble and turn to God for strength. It is the great teacher. If we learn to never give up, to turn to God, to keep trying-- are not these lessons more valuable than any success? If we become a better person--an overcomer--wouldn't our "failure" be a success?

Abraham Lincoln lost eight elections. He had numerous political and business defeats. We could have elected a president with natural political ease and talent. Instead, we benefited from his determination and experience. We needed a proven overcomer. It seems the resistance he faced only developed muscle.

Gifted people may get stuck at the level of their gifting, but people who can persevere have no limit.

It has been said that failure is nature's plan to prepare you for great responsibilities. This is because you learn much more from failure than success. William Saroyan (a writer known for his stories about the joy of living despite of poverty) said,

"Good people are good because they've come to wisdom through failure. We get very little wisdom from success, ya know."

We can make a difference.

Faith