Us and Them

I am grateful to have had the chance to vacation in the Caribbean last week.

What an eye-opening experience.

Without going into specifics, to get to the resort which we were staying at, from the airport we had to drive an hour and a half in a state-of-the-art tour bus through several small towns.

As we drove through the streets, and looked down at the towns inhabitants, an alarming sense of “us and them”came over me.

I found myself wondering how it would feel to live in one of those ramshackle houses with only the bare minimum rations required to survive. Then I wondered what it was like for the townspeople to look up at our big beautiful luxury bus heading off to a five-star resort segregated from the poverty of the villages and located in a magical oasis.

If I was in their shoes how would I feel?

My trip was a sobering reminder of how incredibly fortunate I am to live in the free world, and to live in a place where there is so much abundance and opportunity.

As Cicero noted: “Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.”

May we always find the strength to be thankful for the lives we live and move forward with the resolve to make a difference in our homes, in our communities and in our world.

“Us and Them” should be a term relegated to the history books.

Let’s focus on “us” as in “all of us” and move forward for good.

Tagged as: Caribbean, Cicero, Poverty, Travel