A World Bigger Than Us

A good friend of mine is doing an assignment on certain mental disorders. Part of his assignment includes sitting in for sessions with psychiatrists and observing the patients. After a few of those sessions, he told me he feels as if he's been very sheltered his whole life. He didn't elaborate on what those patients had gone through but his exact words were "No one between the ages of 15-25 should ever have to go through those kind of things".

Abuse? Physical, emotional, mental and even sexual abuse? Likely, isn't it? And it affected these people. Results in depression, multiple personality disorders. Basically whatever they'd been through messed up their head real bad.

I did a short stint with an organisation that helped and raised awareness for child sexual (and other forms of) abuse after my college days. I chanced to look into a file one day which documents phone conversations with victims who call in to ask for help or report an incident. I have to admit I was pretty surprised myself at what some of them had been through. 5 year old kids being battered? 9 year old girls being molested and forced to do hideous things?

A cynical person would have said its a sick world we live in. I agree actually. It IS a sick world we live in, where evil abounds. Where some morals have sunk so low that we're worse off than animals. But at the same time, I believe there is hope, and that we CAN make a difference. That's what this post is about; making a difference.

I know some people who read this would immediately start to say "Hey, we're just individuals. We don't have the power to make rules or enforce them. What can we do?". We can do a lot more than it appears. But first let's examine the other alternative; apathy.

So since we 'can't do anything', I suppose all we're supposed to do is turn a blind eye to all the things that go wrong? That sounds absurd really.

What we really need to do is to start taking responsibility for our world. Not just our tiny lil worlds which only include ourselves and our friends and family, but to go beyond that. If we could start taking responsibility for our surroundings, our co-workers, employees, employers, our communities and our countries, wouldn't that make this world a better place? Wouldn't that make a difference?

We who live in Malaysia can consider ourselves to be really blessed. I know we've got a really messy (yet interesting) political scene at the moment, but we don't have major earthquakes, do we? We don't have a war on our hands do we? Here in Malaysia we're relatively safe. Most of us have enough to eat. Learning to count our blessings is not something that's very easy, but it sure opens our eyes to see how much we've been blessed with here.

For everyone who reads this, and also for myself, let's learn to give more of ourselves. We're surrounded by people who need it. Be it money, time, a crying shoulder, whatever. If we could just decide today to take a little more responsibility for a few others. If we could start to take an interest in other people's lives. If we could put ourselves in the shoes of the less fortunate.

Then we would see that there is a world bigger than us. We'd be amazed at the impact the slightest gesture from us could make.

P.S. I suppose I should interject here as a final note that if anyone is interested in sponsoring a less fortunate child, do visit www.worldvision.com.my

My 2 cents =)