Two Women

"Today, give a stranger one of your smiles. It might be the only sunshine he sees all day." ~Quoted in P.S. I Love You

Last week as I was driving from my office to the gym, I was stopped at a red light downtown. While I was waiting, I noticed two women standing on the sidewalk, waiting to cross the street.

The first was obviously some sort of successful professional woman. She was wearing an expensive suit (I know because you can't buy suits like that for $60 at Kohls...I've looked!) what looked like Jimmy Choo or Manolo shoes (based on my having seen them on tv), and carrying one of those purses that people spend my monthly mortgage payment on. Her hair was pinned up, her make up was perfect, and she was chatting away on her iPhone.

The second looked to be a homeless woman. Her hair was ratty and her face was dirty. She was wearing what looked to be several layers of clothing and towing along some sort of rolling cart. She looked cold and tired.

The two women were from different worlds. I began to wonder why. Theoretically, both women could have ended up in suits, or both women could have ended up in the flannel jacket. Clearly at some point, maybe early on or maybe later, maybe by choice or maybe by chance, one of the women was given an opportunity that the other was not. One of the women got a chance to take a different path, that led to a different life. Who knows why her path was different, but it clearly was.

We need to be thankful for the opporutnities we have been given in our lives. It's easy to forget the opportunities that have come our way. Many of them we worked for, but a lot of them were probably luck of the draw. For example, many of my opportunities were based on the family that I was born into. I hit the lottery on that one. Some people don't.
The lives of the two women on the street are so completely different, but in that moment, they were in the same place. Life is funny that way. We can find ourselves having connections to people who are our complete opposites. The thing is, most of the time, we never go beyond standing on the sidewalk. We don't speak to people who have different lives. We don't get to know them, so we never figure out what it is we have in common. Odds are, we have more in common than we think. It might be the same faith, the same dreams, feeling a similar pain, living on the same street, watching the same tv shows.

I guess I have two points. First, be grateful for the opportunites that you have been given. Realize that some people who could have been in your world, just didn't get the same chances as you. Second, the two women on the street will always be different. But that doesn't mean that they have to live in different worlds. Remember that the next time you are walking down the street, standing in an elevator, or even walking around your office.