Other times, I read things like the following and am saddened and angered by life....or I should say by "people"? I'm sure I'm no different than most of you out there in these fluctuating emotions.
Here are three things that sobered me today:
From Verbatim in Time magazine:
"I was shouting, but no one could hear me."
Rom Houben, a Belgian man who was mistakenly presumed to be in a coma for 23 years after becoming paralyzed in a car crash. A recent journal article revealed that doctors, using new scanning techniques, discovered in 2006 that Houben, who could not speak, had normal brain function. He now communicates using a special keyboard.
(I'm not blaming doctors for not knowing the man was viable in this scenario. From this tidbit of information, it sounds as if the technology to discover his predicament didn't exist until now. But it does underscore what people need to remember: Medicine is an art as much as a science. And there are good doctors and bad doctors. And we really need to be our own best advocates by researching and researching and continuing to ask questions. Don't rely on one doctor and stop there.)
"I want to have an easy job. A job where nobody hits or hurts us."
Sabar Mina, an 8-year-old Pakistani girl, who, instead of attending school, is forced to work for pennies smuggling food across the Afghanistan border.
(Will we ever have a world in which the innocents, children and animals, aren't abused, neglected or exploited?)
On the encouraging side:
"To change America's course we need to change ourselves, our expectations and our willingness to accept the unacceptable. When we refuse to allow our children to receive a trophy for [simple] participation, we are on the road to restoring the meaning of merit in our Republic. When we insist that no one is too big to fail [Wall Street, corporations] we will be able to learn from our mistakes."
(Thank you, Glenn Beck, from a liberal who doesn't usually agree with you.)
