The Value of My Life

742 Words3 Pages
A couple of days before I was to board an airplane that would eventually take me half way around the world to India, I found myself staring at a wall for countless hours, wondering how much fun my friends will be experiencing during the summer. I thought India was just like any other country and that it would be another boring family trip I would have to endure, but what awaited me there would make me value my life and make me appreciate the things I toke for granted, like I had done never before. I arrived at Mumbai International Airport, where the stench of human feces filled the air; I wondered why everything looked so drastically different. Hundreds of people, barely clothed, were begging for food and money right outside the airport, hoping to receive a meal that would last them for another miserable day in what seemed to be a miserable life; a sight which I had never seen before, leaving me heartbroken. My parents never had to explain to me that these people were without homes; it was obvious by the looks on all of their faces that they didn’t care about the small meaningless things I take for granted, and that surviving another day was a victory in their minds. My whole life until that point was taken for granted and undervalued. Little children no older than seven were running around the streets of Mumbai with no shoes on, having the time of their lives; they didn’t require such extravagant materialistic items for their lives to have meaning. I believed that your life without materialistic things is a glass half empty. The Ipod, laptop, and toy car I wanted so desperately didn’t matter, because there were children in this world who were capable of having the time of their lives with nothing more than a couple of rocks they found by the street. I always pestered my parents into buying me useless things by yelling, “DADDDDY, Bobby’s dad bought him a new
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