The Today Show...

....always gets me thinking.

This week Matt and Al are in Afghanistan giving us an inside look at how things have progressed over the last [almost] eight years. When I heard eight years, I almost fell out of my seat. Has it really been that long? It's no secret that life over in the Middle East is tough. I, myself, am particularly interested in the treatment of women in those areas. Thank you Dr. Nath & Dr. Wilkey!

However, this morning Matt was saying that the average life expectancy there is 44 and that a majority of the adults suffer from post traumatic depression. For almost twenty years now, this poor country has been in a war of some sort. Could you imagine? When I heard that, it broke my heart for these poor people. What have they done to deserve a life like this? And what is so special about me that I was born in the United States? Where I'm free to dress how I want, speak to who want, become educated and pick a career, and, most importantly, marry a man that I chose to love, not one that my father picked for me? I've always said that if I had been born in the Middle East, they would've killed me my first year. I've always been for women's rights, especially as I've gotten older.

It just really got me thinking this morning. I know a lot of people are angry w/ how the country is being run (or, in mine and Erica's case, was being run), but I think we all need to sit back and think about this for a second. Everyone complains about our government and those involved in it...what if we lived somewhere where when you complained about the government, you were imprisoned or put to death? Or your life was in danger for going to the polls to vote against Obama? Or, like in the Phillipines, be brutally murdered b/c you were going to support someone opposing the current man in charge?

This wasn't meant to be a post about Obama, so ignore that, but I just wanted to get across how I was feeling today! No matter how mad you are at our government right now, be glad that you can voice that. Be glad that you aren't in any danger of being gunned down when you leave for work or the grocery store in the mornings. And women, be glad that you can choose to work or stay home w/ your babies, that you can become educated and choose to marry for love. :)


Okay, so, I'll step down off my soap box now.

Have a good Tuesday!