If you have a bed to sleep on, a closet to put your clothes in and a roof over your head you are richer than at least 75% of the people in the world. It's surprising, but very true. You are incredibly lucky just to have a computer to read this on.
Geographers have divided the world's countries into two categories - developed and developing. A developed country is a country that is up with the latest technology and infrastructure and has a high standard of living for the people in it. A developing country is the opposite. Sadly, most of the countries in the world fall under the developing category.
It all started with Europe. Europe (especially England) a long way back had revolutionized ship making. They made ships strong and sturdy enough to travel across large distances and carry large numbers of people. This is course, revolutionized exploration, which changed the world in which we live in today.
England, Holland, Portugal, France and Spain took over and colonized many of the developing countries that are in the world today. Some of them robbed some countries of their wealth. This left only a small percentage of countries wealthy with a strong economy.
Having an education and being able to read and write makes you very fortunate. If you lived in India you probably wouldn't have desks or chairs or proper equipment at your school. You would sit on the ground (most likely on a dirty floor) and listen to the teacher. There would be no laptop or notebooks for you to take notes in - if you were lucky you might have a small chalkboard.
You may have seen advertisements asking you to adopt a child in Africa or another poor country (asking you to send a certain amount of money each month to provide the child with fresh water, shelter etc). If you've done that, that's great but there's something fishy about those advertisements. Make sure you look into what you're doing before you rush into adopting a child. There are stories about how some of those things use the majority of the money on themselves, paying their workers etc and only a small percentage of the money you donate actually goes to help the child.
China has a huge number of incredibly rich people but also a huge number of incredibly poor people. To make the poor richer you have to make the rich poorer. But it doesn't happen that way. The rich keep getting richer and richer. They have better opportunities and have enough money to be able to make more of it. The poor just keep getting poorer. They don't have enough money to get richer and richer, they just have to keep spending their money on things they need.
You may want an iphone4s, a Ferrari and a mansion but do you don't really need those things? It's good to keep striving for your goals, aiming to earn more money and buy the things you want but still remember material items aren't everything in life. If you don't have something expensive and classy or can't get it it's not the end of the world. Many people don't even have the mere necessities in life.
I'm not telling you to donate your life's savings to help stop poverty. I'm not telling you to train for ten years in medicine then fly over to help the sick in Africa. I'm just telling you that you should appreciate what you have.
Author's Note: Statistics in first sentence are from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvTFKpIaQhM Also; access this site if you would like to view an inspirational video about these issues.
Other information is gathered from my history class lessons.
