Loving and helping others

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/05/13/18736726.php






Loving and helping others

by Ted Rudow III, MA ( Tedr77 [at] aol.com )

Monday May 13th, 2013
Perhaps the hardest-hit country would be Bangladesh, where thousands of people already die from floods each year. An estimated 12 million people were driven from their homes in Bangladesh and parts of India as the annual monsoons reached their full impact. The rains and flooding in India, Nepal and Bangladesh were blamed for 445 deaths.

And in northern Bangladesh and northeastern and northern India, monsoonal floods have cost millions their homes and dozens their lives since the start of August; the floods are bigger and faster than ever with too little vegetation and soil left in the Himalayan foothills to soak up the rain.

Bangladesh's economic, financial and social data reads like a recipe for mass misery. Bangladesh has low life expectancy, low adult literacy-and suffers some of the most frequent major natural disasters in the world. Yet, Bangladeshis are reportedly the happiest people on the face of the planet

This is despite having a GDP of just $1,483. Many impoverished Bangladeshis truly do appear to laugh in the face of adversity.

A man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth! True happiness and purpose in life come from loving and helping others in some way, in giving rather than receiving, in sharing rather than hoarding, in making the world a better place, in "being a force of nature instead of a feverish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy," as one writer put it! That's what brings on happiness.

Ted Rudow III, MA