Perspective

On the door of my refrigerator I have the heartbreaking, Pulitzer Prize winning photograph of a helpless and tiny little girl being stalked by a vulture that waits patiently for her to die. The image was captured by Kevin Carter during the famine in Sudan in 1994. Mr Carter later committed suicide.

Many people who see this image so prominently displayed in my kitchen question my sanity. They wonder how I could not be made depressed, angry or bitter by seeing this suffering everyday. But for me this is a constant reminder that anything in my life is bearable. I am reminded to be grateful for what I have. In the scheme of the North American dream I lead a pretty humble life, but when I look beyond my neighbourhood I realize how truly blessed and abundant my life is. I have never known hunger, I have never been without a roof over my head, I have always had people around who love me.

And yet, for many years I felt that my life was the worst thing that ever happened to me. I wallowed in self-pity, fear and doubt. I did everything I could to keep the bad times rolling. Felt that the world had handed me a raw deal and that I deserved more than I was getting. That if others only knew how horrible my life was they would feel moved to pity me. "The Victim" was my favourite role, it allowed me to drink and use and blame and enjoy the twisted attention I got from those around me who fed into my delusions in order to feed their own. I used the tragedies of the world to perpetuate this depression. The world and all it's people, especially me, sucked so what was the point? What was the point?

When I was that fucked up an image like this would have sent me into a downward spiral of despair. I was too sensitive to see such things, all suffering became my own. I couldn't distinguish between my own anguish and those of others. The universe was made up of swirling waves of pain and I was awash in it. In a strange way, I liked it. Pain and suffering held a romantic mystique for me, I wanted to be among those tortured artistic souls who created the works I so admired. Of course the fact that most of those tortured souls ended up dead before their time didn't dissuade me, to die a beautiful, tragic and creative death was appealing.

But the day came, lying in bed, hungover and empty and wishing the earth would just open up and swallow me so I wouldn't have to suffer through another day of being me that I realized that death and suffering are never beautiful, never romantic and my suffering was entirely of my own making. I had no outside force or person to blame, I was not the victim but the perpetrator. Sure bad things had happened to me, but it was me who allowed them to take over my identity. So I was date raped in my teens, but how many women have suffered the degradation of gang rape during times of war, seen their daughters brutalized before their eyes? How many people have suffered the humiliation of repeated sexual abuse at the hands of someone they are meant to trust? Suddenly this thing that happened to me in a bizarre fifteen minutes of my life doesn't seem worthy of years of shame and guilt. So I was beaten by someone who was supposed to love me, but how many victims of torture are there in the world at this very minute, how many spouses and children are murdered by a "loved one"? So another relationship failed, but how many men, women and children are lost, abandoned and alone, without someone to talk to let along hug them or even look them in the eye and smile, one human being to another?

When reality is not blurred by my ego, when I can place my suffering in context, realize that I am just a small part of the whole, and be honest and humble enough to realize what real suffering is, I can allow myself to feel blessed for the life that I have. This little girl, starving to death on my fridge every morning when I make breakfast makes me mindful of what I have and encourages me to give away what I have been given. I may not be able to solve the world's problems but when a chance is presented to be of service to someone in pain, someone alone, or someone in need I now have the ability to not just uselessly empathize but to do something about it, even if it's just to smile, one human being to another.


J.