I think sometimes in the ole US of A we take for granted the access we have to decent water. Maybe rightfully so, we do a lot to keep it that way. If you’ve ever traveled you learned like I did to be very careful of drinking water. When in doubt drink beer or tequila. For those of you who don’t get too far, I’ll explain.
I lived in Olongapo City, Philippines for a brief moment along the Olongapo sewage ditch or “shit river” as we Yanks called it. Interestingly enough it did not stink like I thought it should but on certain days there was no mistaking it. The indigenous were accustom to every aspect of it, the size, the color, the smell, what was in it. So familiar in fact that they would allow their children to swim and play in it. Not a single concern for health and welfare or disease. I suspect by now due to my description you are imagining some little canal made specifically for the sewage to go to some place specially made to collect it. Sadly, that is not the scene. The ditch I am referring is the Olongapo River, a natural water way the size of the Upper Yough, or the Clinch or the Salt rivers. Not a big river but not even close to a small one. You see, up river everyone builds a chute from his shack on the hill down to the river, he goes down to the river and draws a bucket of water, hikes back to his shack, at the head end of the chute and drops trou, leaves his spent lunch. Promptly grabbing the bucket and sending the excrement sloshing down the chute to the Olongapo as if to say, “Hanggang sa muli po.”
A similar experience is had just about anywhere in Mexico. One can not find a clean source of water that is not in a bottle or the ocean and just about every city dumps their sewage into the ocean. You can look for the pipe, they’re usually fairly obvious. You don’t swim unless you can verify that there is no one living up stream, usually that high up it is too cold to dip even on hotter days. We have photos of us sitting on rocks with a beautiful waterfall behind us that is polluted as all get out. Not like the Olongapo smelling of sewage but visible enough.
I think the main take away here is that we have great water resources all over this country because we work hard to ensure its integrity. One can drink from almost any water source in the country, of a certainty swim without the slightest concern. Of course there are exceptions, I’m sure to hear about them, but now a days someone will clean it up shortly and hammer those responsible. We do this for our water for a reason, we want a good life. Bad water makes for bad living. Mexico for all intents and purposes could be a first world country. Why is it not?
The lack of the most basic education, that preserving water is fundamental to quality of life. So I pose a question to you. As and example, analogy or metaphor is there a place in your life wherein you deposit some of your waste that later in time meets you down the river where some necessity is polluted and you’ve just gotten used to it and accept it as it is.
I visited with a friend this weekend who hails from the LA area. He and his wife are constantly complaining about “the system”. Politics, schools, health, government and the travesty of big business interloping on their existence. How difficult things have become, how expensive things have become or how ridiculous something seems. All the while not recognizing that his participation in all of it is what’s doing him in. He works at the corporate level and make good money, she does too. His children are going in to government or corporate lives. They’re always complaining about money. They get lots of it but what are they doing with it that gets them in the situation they always seem to be in. Where do they defecate in their life, so to speak, and later encounter it down river when they scoup it up to make soup or take a bath?
Of a certainty my analogy is not literal, please don’t tell me how I am so off. The point isn’t can you dissect my words and come up with a torn down version of rubble. The question is can you ‘see’ any part of my picture that will give you understanding of how you pollute your life to your own downfall? Like my friend from the city of angels, he’s no angel and it plays out in his life. His choice to be ignorant about his choices is the life that he leads. You are the sum total of your decisions. If he spent just a little more time scrutinizing his choices he would see some change and realize the benefit of such activity. Life would become more bearable and more rewarding.
I encourage you today to scrutinize your choices diligently. Every single one. Ask yourself will this choice give me the best possible outcome and be lasting. If the choice is temporal, ask yourself is there an option to make this choice more lasting. “Do I buy $20 shoes five times or $100 shoes once?” There is no choice too small to deserve your utmost consideration. If there seems to be, then you probably need to dispense with the situation. You need to have a life full of significance. Dispense with the trivial and see how your life fills with great opportunity. The greater the opportunity the greater the choices you will be given and the greater your life will become.
To quote someone famous who’s made some terrible choices, “Come on man”, go and scrutinize all of your choices from this point on, take great leaps of faith in those choices but mostly choose to be involved with the greater people around you so that they can encourage you to be great.
Go, choose, right now!
Greg