Paralysis by guilt or by ignorance?

This is a reflective opinion piece. It is meant as a reflection and is meant as both an academic and artistic piece in regards to global health.

Social Equity: 50% of the world's population earns $2.50 a day..... A Reflection

I work three jobs.
I get minimum wage at two of the three.
My jobs? They are providing services and knowledge, smiling graciously, and referring them when I know I don't know enough.
Yesterday I made thirty dollars by making people tea.
I know I don't know enough.
But I do know that my knowledge and services are no more valuable than fifty percent of the world's people's services.
I know that.
And I think reflecting on this really does bring to light social inequity and poverty. Not only that,
But the perpetuation of inequity.
Because around here, around Western and Ontario, we ask:
"What am I entitled to?" 
and this is an easy question for us to ask because

we

get

answers.

We get answers and sometimes we get solutions.
What am I entitled to? Well if I pay one hundred fourteen dollars (eleven hours of work at a job I dare say I love) I am entitled to white, clean, shiny teeth and a visit to someone who can treat my symptoms if not my ailment. Cared for in the comfort of a campus.
I bet that someone who works eleven hours at a job they do not love will not be entitled to benefits.
They wont be afforded "health" like I am.
They wont get answers to questions. They wont get answers nor will they get solutions.
"What am I entitled to?"
"What am I entitled to?"
"What am I entitled to?"
Many people tire asking questions to deaf ears.

Chalk it down to religion, brain chemistry, hormones, or upbringing, but most humans have shown they are unwilling to part with entitlement/power/material or nonmaterial wealth/status for the benefit of those less
fortunate.
A total forfeit of wealth is unheard of.
Maybe that's why I find these millenium goals made by well-suited politicians to be particularly odd.
Or the fill-the-cup advertisements of wealthy celebs suggesting twenty five cents will make a difference.
Will it?
That's what education does to you. Or, that's what it's done to me.
It's made me
question and doubt,
doubt and question,
whether we can really change this.
Can I really pull off this invisible cloth that is smothering the people all over the globe that surround me? People I love that I haven't met yet? They are choking. And I am breathing.


But for every self reflective, guilty-by-birth-into-a-middle-class-Canadian-family "me", there are outnumbering "thems" who cannot read more into their power
or social status
or health and wellbeing
because they don't have the knowledge of global health. Either that or they cannot bear to realize that maybe it wasn't or isn't their strong work ethic that afforded them their daily luxuries and hot showers.

...
I took a hot shower this morning..

I don't know which is better.
I've been racking my brain for the past five years and I don't know which is better.
Better to be paralyzed by guilt and by shame that "me's" live such comfortable and convenient lives while people we haven't met,
yet,
love unconditionally are the
have-not's?
Or...
Better to live like them.
Better to live blind to the fact that some hundreds of people, all with beautiful names and beautiful faces, die waiting in line to get at resources we were born in front of?

Which ones, the them's or the me's will have better mental health?
Which ones, the them's or the me's will go to sleep first?
Which ones, the them's or the me's will feel satisfied?
will feel proud?
will feel accomplished and worthy and loved and listened to?
Which ones, the them's or the me's will really improve someone's life?

I get ten dollars and twenty five cents an hour for serving tea while fifty percent of the world gets two dollars and fifty cents for their day.

Will reflection change the outcome?
I wish it would.
Wish it would.