30DWC - Day 10 - Something I Feel Strongly About

Let me start out saying that I did not intend for this writing challenge to be something serious. As you know oh-so-well, I am very, very rarely serious. I mask my feelings with humor in almost every situation. That said, it's about to get real up in this biz-nass.

Something that I feel very strongly about is the fact that our nation has such little regard for the less fortunate. Both in foreign countries, and in our own. The wealth disparity is ridiculously wide.

Let me be extremely clear: I do NOT support governmental Robin-Hooding (or, "spreading the wealth") in any way. What I do support is heartfelt generosity on a human and personal level. In this country, many of our poorest people are richer than almost half the world.

I've done quite a bit of research and documentary-watching on what it's like to live on less than one dollar per day (a statistic that is staggeringly large in far too many countries), and I have concluded this:
America is fat and happy while our brothers and sisters globally, starve to death daily.

This bothers my soul.

I am not pointing fingers or making myself out to be some kind of saint. I am part of this problem. So, I would like to downsize and make a difference.

I'm going to take the 7 challenge. In her book, 7, author Jen Hatmaker pares her life down to seven areas of excess, and then focuses on using seven items per month from each category. For example, Month 1 is food, so she ate only seven foods for 30 days. Month 2 is clothing, so she wore only seven articles of clothing for a month. You get the idea.

I would love to do something like this. Not to "raise awareness" or draw attention to myself as a holier-than-thou have-notter, but to force myself to think. To think every time I purchase something. To think every time I'm hungry. To think when I generate so much waste that I could have used instead of buying something new.

This project is intentional. It is inconvenient. I hope it is also life-changing.

- Bowman