Past President Heather presided at today's meeting.
Bill Maston’s Rotary Greeting – while the in person attendance of the rotary was small, the larger rotary community was there at heart.
While there were no outside visitors, we spent our time reflecting on how the international Rotary community shapes our thoughts in the complexity of today’s events.
We did not have a formal speaker today. Instead we shared stories together. We reflected on world events, and how lucky we are. During our group discussion, we focused on personal experiences and how they’ve shaped our lives. We came to the conclusion that world travel is important to all of us as world citizens and that we would all appreciate the world more if more of us traveled. Some trivia we discussed is as follows.
Korea has become an advanced society that has prospered greatly since the Korean war. When recently asked how Koreans felt about how prosperous they were in comparison to their neighbors, the general response was one of great pride. However, on a personal level they were not all that happy even though they had accumulated much wealth. This has been evidenced by the high suicide rate currently experienced within the country.
As a counter balance to Korea’s prosperity, India on the other hand is a country that is very poor. They are having a hard time transitioning to the potential prosperity of their own country. Ironically when asked, people from India claim to be the happiest people of all. Food for thought.
It was also brought up that in the United States approximately 80% of America citizens do not have a passport. As a result, few Americans seem to understand how prosperous we are. And to say the least how lucky we are. It was mentioned that even though we have great wealth, many of our citizens do not appreciate what we have.
Another observation made was that in America we keep our lights on almost 24hrs a day. Whereas in so many other countries they only turn on the lights when they need them.
In addition it seems as though life was much easier in the 1970s and 1980s. it was noted that with a basic job we could afford food and rent, and gas for a car. Now a days it seems as though you don’t have enough money for either. It makes us wonder how our children are able to get along.
I don’t think we solved many problems today but we definitely shared some Rotary spirit.
Hope that everybody was able to vote today.
Just a reminder that the Cops and Gobblers Thanksgiving Food Basket giveaway event will take place rain or shine on Sunday, November 20th, at 9 am at the Mountain View Police Department, 1000 Villa Street. Hope you can all make it.