Santa Cruz Sentinel

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We worry about how we’ll pay for our children’s education and keep up with the mortgage.

Week after week we debate whether we can afford another car, a new computer, a refrigerator or some other gizmo.

We think we have to work too much and wish we had more time and money to travel.

We can’t always go to a movie, go out for dinner, take a class or go to a concert as often as we wish because we’re short on cash.

We — or I should say I — gripe about the cost of living in Santa Cruz.

Yet we have a home, transportation and more than enough to eat.

I grumble about not having enough time to write, yet I have more time than I ever had before. Our children are all healthy, well-fed, clothed and educated. We have wonderful family, friends, community and support.

So what am I complaining about?

I’m complaining because I often focus on what is lacking and the next thing that I desire, and seldom stop to acknowledge and appreciate what I already have.

I complain because it buffers me from the painful realities of most people’s lives — and conveniently depletes the amount of energy and time I have to work toward changing the world’s inadequacies, injustices and inequalities.

Then, every once in a while (hopefully more often than I give myself credit for), I stop and smell the roses and appreciate the life I have — then look at the dying flowers around me and reach out to help them grow by volunteering, donating, writing, advocating and voting.

I recently came across the following Internet site by Allysson Lucca (www.luccaco/terra/terra.htm).

The site is called "Miniature Earth," and it stopped me dead in my Web-surfing tracks.

The sound and images are beautiful, and the words that follow shockingly put our lives and those of our fellow human beings in perspective.

Here’s what Miniature Earth tells us:

"If we turn the earth’s population into a small community of 100 people, keeping the same proportions we have nowadays, it would look something like this:

If you keep your food in a fridge and your clothes in a closet, if you have a roof over your head and a bed to sleep in — you’re richer than 75 percent of the world’s entire population.

If you have a bank account, you’re part of the 8 percent of the wealthiest people in the world.

If you can read these words, you’re luckier than 1 billion people, who can’t read at all."

I hope the next time I start to snivel about some trivial situation or predicament, I will remember "Miniature Earth."

I hope I will stop to appreciate the luxury and decadence that most Americans enjoy, and will take some action to change the imbalances that the majority of our planet’s people struggle with daily.

Statistics used in "Miniature Earth" come from a number of places, including Zero Population, world census figures, Natural Resources Defense Council and the United Nations.

Gabriel Constans is a Santa Cruz writer and author of "Beyond One’s Own: Healing Humanity in the Wake of Personal Tragedy."

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