If the world were a village of only 100 people, there would be:

• 60 Asians,
• 14 Africans,
• 12 Europeans,
• 8 people from Central and South America, Mexico and the Caribbean,
• 5 from the USA and Canada, and
• 1 person from Australia or New Zealand.

The people of the village would have considerable difficulty communicating:

• 14 people would speak Mandarin,
• 8 people would speak Hindi/Urdu,
• 8 English,
• 7 Spanish,
• 4 Russian,
• 4 Arabic.

This list accounts for less than half the villagers. The others speak (in descending order of frequency) Bengali, Portuguese, Indonesian, Japanese, German, French, and 200 other languages.

In the village there would be:

• 33 Christians,
• 22 Moslems,
• 15 Hindus,
• 14 Nonreligious, Agnostics, or Atheists,
• 6 Buddhists,
• 10 all other religions.

In this 100-person community:

• 80 would live in substandard housing.
• 67 adults live in the village; and half of them would be illiterate.
• 50 would suffer from malnutrition.
• 33 would not have access to clean, safe drinking water.
• 24 people would not have any electricity.
• Of the 76 that do have electricity, most would use it only for light at night.
• In the village would be 42 radios, 24 televisions, 14 telephones, and 7 computers (some villagers own more than one of each).
• 7 people would own an automobile (some of them more than one).
• 5 people would possess 32% of the entire village’s wealth, and these would all be from the USA.
• The poorest one-third of the people would receive only 3% of the income of the village.

If you woke up this morning healthy … you are more blessed than the million who will not survive this week.

If you have never experienced the danger of battle, the fear and loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture, or the pain of starvation … you are better off than 500 million people in the world.

If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof overhead and a place to sleep … you are more comfortable than 75% of the people in this world.

If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, and spare change in a dish someplace … you are among the top 8% of the world’s wealthy.

If you can read this, you are more blessed than over two billion people in the world who cannot read at all.

When one considers our world from such a compressed perspective, it becomes both evident and vital that education, acceptance and compassion are essential for the progress of humankind.

http://www.odt.org/popvillage.htm

Taken from http://www.odt.org/popvillage.htm

Konrad K., a member of the group, brought up the theme “Habituation” this month. As part of the theme, we are each to choose one daily empowering habit in an area that we find ourselves getting stuck. By applying the habit for 21 days, ideally consecutive, over the course of a month the theory is that it will become part of our lives. We are to constantly checking in to see how each person is progressing over the course of the week.

My daily habit that I chose is to put fearful “first things first.” Many of us may have heard of the entire priority matrix to do your top “A” items early. I’ve taken this a step forward and I ask myself, “Which one of these To Do’s give me the most fear daily?” As I plan out my day, I turn on my fear-o-meter and make that dreadful choice. Then I email that action to my Peer Success Circles Accountability buddy.

What I’ve found so far is that there is a lot more momentum in my day. Once I conquer my fear, I can easily complete my next few actions. I also found that my day ends early. In the past i would schedule that Fearful Do later in the afternoon. I would then spend too much time over thinking and sometimes Vacuuming or snacking as a means to procrastinate.

As the legendery Improv teacher Del Close says, “Follow the Fear” and see where it TAKES YOU.