What is the journey of human development?

As I sit here, trying to do some reading in the comfort of the library, I realize how truly lucky I am. I have an amazing family who would hold up the earth for me. I have a safe place to sleep, food to eat, friends who love me, and healthy outlets for my emotions.

In COMPLETE contradiction, let us turn to "failed states", those with chaos, violence, poor water sanitation, sickness not health, the communities where life is uncertain and grim, with sexual assault, child abuse and exploitation, severe resource shortages. Does we pause to consider the psychological ramifications of being born into such depravity? When your life is not your own, because you've been born into a cycle of poverty-and cannot seem to muster the energy to create a new path? There are a million remedies for the human condition, but we are seemingly drawn to those policy prescriptions that don't always consider the importance of human spirit-and that's what community development and building is about.

What the IMF is not-a feel good organization. Economic liquidity into a bankrupt economy-how about some heart and soul restoration? Where are the people who inject a little love into a community ravaged by destitution?

We ought to consider where we are on our own personal journeys, the path laid out-but the destiny unbeknownst to us. Everyone can pull themselves through a difficult time-but when we get ourselves back together again-it's our responsibility to nurture another's spirit. We Americans have it easy.

Just because we don't have to live paycheck to paycheck still, nor consider if we are going to get enough to eat one day, doesn't mean we can as a society completely ignore the world around us. We have cyclical domestic poverty-but everywhere does. And it's the everywhere I urge us to consider. Everyone has a journey-but what we do with ours as we live temporarily on this earth must be thought about-beyond a simple payment of taxes or charitable donation.

I believe that our lives are threads woven together in a tapestry. What picture they make at the end of our lives, our generation's existence-that creation of legacy is up to us.