 Transformation Travel, A Broader Look - 1 You can’t always be traveling to experience transformation. Sometimes your travel happens in your chair at home, in a book you’re reading, a show you’re watching, a relationship, an illness. Sometimes politics transform your life. I recently read an interview with Bill Gates and Warren Buffet after Bill Gates sent his yearly letter on the state of the Bill Gates Foundation to Warren. Warren who has contributed 30 billion to the Foundation, likes to know how the money is working for change. https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/02/buffett-gates/517833/ Current politics came up in the conversation and the interviewer asked Bill and Warren if they were worried about what would happen with the nation and the world under the current administration. Both responded that they always worried about the world, but they were also optimistic and stated that Trump’s administration is one wave in a big ocean. Buffet said, “America is already great, and I predict a comeback for the truth, Democracy is self correcting”. Both men took the long view and listed the progress made since they started the Foundation. Progress that has reduced poverty worldwide, that has increased immunization (580 million children since 2000) across the world, eradicated diseases, increased GDP 6 to 1 in Buffet’s lifetime. Warren said, “I live in a neighborhood where everyone is living better, because of medicine, entertainment etc. than John D Rockefeller did”. With access to facts and falsehoods via phones, people are more aware of disparity and become dissatisfied. Bill added, everyone can read the Gates letter instead and find out about the good things that are happening. This interview teaches that a long view is helpful when things don’t look so good in your life. It also tells me that even if personal transformation is at a slow pace I can contribute to transformation for others. This month I’m raising money for the Care Foundation, backed by the Gates Foundation. The money will transform the life of women and girls in impoverished countries: they may get a water spigot near their home, they may get shoes and a uniform so they can attend school. Daily for a week I’ll be walking with friends the distance these women and girls now have to walk to access water, to get their education, to get to work. The disparity between our world and that of women in Africa will come home to us and do its work of transformation for us. What is transforming your life right now? Subscribe to be notified of new blogs!
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