Water, Water Everywhere...

Last time I pointed out one example of the folly of trying to make everything in our lives totally pure and one-hundred-percent safe.  Ironically, about the same time that California is requiring the removal of minute quantities of a coloring chemical from soft drinks, the rest of the world is striving to find reasonably safe drinking water for a significant number of people.

A recent news story from the BBC gives the details.  Work led by the UN begun in 1990 has greatly reduced the number of people worldwide without access to safe drinking water, meeting their goal 3 years ahead of schedule.  Still even today only 89% of the world population has access to a reliable source of clean water.  Further along in the same article it mentions another major challenge, that less than half the people living in India have access to a toilet!

To me this helps with gratitude and perspective.  How often do we take for granted such things as indoor plumbing?  While some Americans buy bottled water at hundreds of times the cost, there are millions of people in the world who would celebrate the opportunity to drink the water we feel is only fit for washing cars or watering lawns.  These reminders should give us reason to be appreciative and grateful for what we have and not so obsessed with what we wish for.