10 February 2014

SFL Journal #7


To read all of the posts from my SFL class, click here!

 My professor started class today by asking us various questions and we were to keep the answers to ourselves. So ask your self these questions: 
  1. Have you ever had to go without food, not by your choice? 
  2. Have you ever had your utilities (gas, water, electricity) shut off because you couldn't pay the bill? 
  3. Have you ever been evicted or foreclosed on because you couldn't pay the rent/mortgage? 
  4. Have you ever had to forgo medical treatment because you could not afford it? 
  5. Have you had to work while a child to help support the family? 
My answers to each of these questions was easy, NO. I've never lived in poverty. 

So many people around me can say yes. I know there were a few people in my class that answered yes to one or more of those questions.
Given the opportunity to reflect on this made me very grateful for the privileges I've had. I was given everything growing up. I never worried about money or where my next meal would come from. We were able to afford after school activities that I greatly benefited from.

I know that I took this for granted and I never thought about it until one day in high school. A friend came over and when we were pulling up to my house, which he'd never seen, he said, "Wow, I would give anything to live in a house like this." I felt so weird. I never wanted to show off my house and it really looked nicer than we intended. It was very updated and nice but only because our home had burnt down only 10 months earlier. Before our home burnt down, it was an average home for our area. Build in the 80s and re-build in the 2000s, it had a lot of upgrades.
That experience definitely changed the way that I viewed my life and those around me.

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