One experience that is useful, insightful, and life-changing is to travel overseas to a poor country. I highly recommend it! If you ever get the chance to visit a poor nation in Asia, Africa, or elsewhere, it’s a great learning experience. One of the advantages so is that it changes ones’ perspective. It helps us Aussies appreciate how much we have – and that’s a positive thing.

Having witnessed poverty in India, and also seen people who – though not desperately poor – have much less than we have, did me a lot of good. It led me to see myself and my circumstances in a different light.

For example, in 1997 I made the first of several trips to India. Before I went, if you’d asked, “Where are you at economically? Are you rich or poor?” I’d have responded – “Well, I’m certainly not rich! I’ve been renting an apartment in Mount Druitt (a down-market suburb in Sydney!), I drive an old Toyota Corona, I don’t have much money in the bank, and I’m not even CLOSE to putting a deposit on a home. I’m certainly not rich!”

But going to India and seeing people living in poverty, and realising that millions live this way, I now regard myself as rich!

> I have a microwave oven!
> My wife and I own a washing machine!
> We have a TV, stereo, and DVD player!
> I own a computer!
> We have a car – with air conditioning!

Many people in the world would look at us who have these things as rich. Most of us Aussies own more than millions of the world’s people! By world standards, we’re near the top of the financial grid.

Going overseas helps us see how fortunate we are, and we may we find ourselves complaining less. Why not take a trip to India… Vietnam… Thailand… Egypt?

David Hunt

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