Wisdom of the Lost

I have realized that while I am not a part of the richest people here I do not know what it is like to be in poverty. I know little struggles, like not having hot water, or not having any money for food and having to make what you have work, but I do not know having everything taken away from me. The people in Manila that have nothing, I envy their courage but I think to pity them would make them seem less strong. I believe that those that have nothing and still make their lives work are nothing short of spectacular. These people that can make something out of nothing and still be able to live their lives are people to be admired. Those without a home, living under the bridge, are people that deserve something better but until their day comes they are staying strong and doing what they have to do in order to survive. That type of tenaciousness is something that I would like to learn from them. The people that live like this are indeed worthy of compassion and assistance. In the dictionary to pity someone is to have a sympathetic sorrow for one distressed, suffering, or unhappy. Society today has turned this word into something demeaning. To people today feeling pity for someone makes them feel like less of a person and, until I actually read the definition of the world, I believed that also. I now see the word in a different light and, in taking in the situations of these people, I know now that I cannot feel sympathy for them because I have not experienced anything even close to what they have to go through. To sympathize with someone implies that you can closely understand what the person is going through and how they might feel about it. I know that I can never say that I have felt anything like that in my life and I could not even begin to guess at how they must feel. I will say that I pity those people but by no means does that make them less than they are. They are strong human beings that, while they are not growing up with the material items that people have, they are getting something that is more rewarding.