There have been a lot of changes in my daily reality lately. Summer vacations were canceled. Flour, milk, or eggs are hard to get at the store. I am also stretched thin, being the daycare and the professional simultaneously. When it feels tough and hard to manage, I reflect on the early life of my teacher, Ven. Yangil, my grandparents, my parents, or even myself to get some perspectives. It helps me to get some footing, and I have been trying to find a way to share it with you.
It took me a while because all of those happened in faraway countries. It was in South Korea when Ven. Yangil used to get up at 4 am every morning, and push a loaded cart for 2 hours to sell mung bean soup for a living. Tough as it is, the fact may not offer as much of a perspective for life in America. Just like knowing that I grew up in a malaria country, and my parents were making less than a dollar a day when I was born in China might not mean much for you. Then I saw the following write up from the American vantage point and thought that it might offer some meaning:
Imagine you were born in 1900. When you are 14, World War I starts and ends on your 18th birthday, with 22 million people killed. Later in the year, a Spanish Flu epidemic hits the planet and runs until you are 20. Fifty million people die from it in those two years. Yes, 50 MILLION. When you’re 29, the Great Depression begins. Unemployment hits 25%, global GDP drops 27%. That runs until you are 33. The country nearly collapses along with the world economy.
When you turn 39, World War II starts. You aren’t even over the hill yet. When you’re 41, the United States is fully pulled into WWII. Between your 39th and 45th birthday, 70 to 85 million people perish in the war, and the Holocaust kills 11 million, 6 million of those were Jews. At 50, the Korean War starts, and five million perish. At 55, the Vietnam War begins, and it doesn’t end for 20 years. Two and half million people die in that conflict. Approaching your 62nd birthday, you have the Cuban Missile Crisis, a tipping point in the Cold War. Life on our planet, as we know it, could well have ended. Great leaders prevented that from happening. As you turn 75, the Vietnam War finally ends. Think of everyone on the planet born in 1900. How do you survive all of that? A kid in 1985 didn’t think their 85-year-old grandparent understood how hard school was. Yet those grandparents (and now great grandparents) survived through everything listed above.
Perspective is an amazing art. Let’s be informed and help each other out. With a little time, we will get through all of this as well.
We will get through this, indeed, and I hope that we are wiser, kinder, and more resilient when we do.