DAY 19 – BASIC REQUIREMENT: SURVIVAL NEEDS

I had a dream last night. I am sitting on a chair at my kitchen table about to eat breakfast. When I look down at the plate there is no food on it. When I take the cup in my hand, there is nothing in it to drink. I go to a closet to change my clothes and it is empty. I walk into another room and there is no furniture. I then found myself in a field because the house I live in is gone.

Too many people on this planet find themselves in such a plight as I was in this dream. They do not have nutritious food to eat, clean water to drink, an adequate home to live in and the necessary clothing to wear for the climate they live in. Their lives are not what they want it to be and beyond what any human being should endure.

Food, water, shelter and clothes are a basic requirement for survival. The people living today who can easily meet this requirement sometimes do not fully appreciate how fortunate they are. They can pay for a comfortable place to call home. They can go to a store and use some of their money to acquire food to eat and clothing to wear. They can turn on a faucet in their home and water comes pouring out. They are not burdened by any uncertainty that they will go without the basic survival needs.

The harsh reality is that when we go back through the millenniums, there were large numbers of our ancestors who have had to face the fact that they may not have food to eat that day or into the near future. There would be no water easily accessible for them. The place they call home may be nothing more than a hut with little or nothing at all to make it more comfortable while wearing the same clothes day after day. Many of our fellow twenty-first century human beings still find themselves in a similar predicament.

Living in an age of the greatest technological advancements that humanity could ever imagine puts us in a position of needing to remedy the disparities between those who can easily meet their survival needs and those who cannot. The desire for a better life and better world is as universal now as it had been for our ancestors throughout the ages. When the most basic of requirements for a better life falls short in a modern world we as a collective species have to correct it.

When I awoke from this dream I now realize that the ability to have nutritious food to eat, clean water to drink, a comfortable home to live in and clothing to wear is an essential requirement for a better life.