Greek Soup Kitchen

   Tonight big decisions are to be made inside the Greek parliament, while outside big fights are made against those decisions... 

   As Abraham Lincoln once said: "Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth."...well obviously in Greece this is not the case. The people have been striking and demonstrating on the streets, clearly saying they don't want more of this torture! This is torture, and they cant take it anymore. The government that the people have elected should represent them and what they want, not an anyone else! Its easy for politicians, the changes that they are making mainly hits the poorer ones and they don't belong to this group. The last years of crisis and depression have drove so many Greeks over the edge, and how many more to come after tonight?

   I have just seen a video on a webpage of an online newspaper, where the reporter says that he has visited a soup kitchen in Athens and it just sank in for him that this crisis was about more than debt and the true cost of the European crisis. NOW??? Seriously?! What did he think up to now? That all these cuts wont affect the population? Or that the Greek people do not exist, just the Greek debt? Its like the politicians, they don't actually have to live with the consequences of the decisions that they make. So who cares, right that the rest of Greece is hungry?! Its easy for the ones who don`t have to live in these conditions. Why cant people see what is happening around them? They cut the salaries, fire people, increase the taxes and invent new ones, they slowly kill the average man... There is limit, or there should be. Every time the Greek government introduces a new package, people have to give up something. First of course you cut down on the non essentials, like clothing, eating and going out...then you cut down on the next level, like private lessons for you children, vacation, car usage..and you go on. You change the soap you use, the pasta you cook...then you eat less meat, less vegetables...and the list goes on and on and on. Until you rich the level where you don't heat you apartment in the winter, since you can`t buy oil because its too expensive... when there is only essentials left, you start to prioritize. What is more important paying my bills or feeding my family? Which one you would pick? This is the choice many Greek families face every day.

   The true cost of this charade that we have to live through...Families get torn apart, because one of them goes to work abroad, living the rest of the family behind. Parents are forced to give up their children, because they can not provide for them anymore. An entire generation is in devastation becaue they cant find a job, they can afford to move out from their parents, they cant start a family. They are standing still, watching the years go by as the situation gets worse day by day. They watch the future that they were promised once to slip through their hands. They are forced out of their country, away from their families. The young generation feels that they have no future, but at least they are still young, maybe they can start over. What about the older people, who worked their time already and now what they get? Pension cuts, taxes, and they get to watch their families suffer...

   They say there is light at the end of the tunnel, that there is always hope...Is there? Some people already admitted that there is not, or at least not this way. They are the ones you read about in the newspaper, the ones that hang themselves in the center of Athens, the ones that jump of from buildings. Unfortunately more and more people feel like that there is no hope or that they are too powerless to change things... The rest knows, that is not getting any better, but they hope. They hope that some miracle will happen and change everything, and all of this will just seem like a bad nightmare. Yes, they hope...and hope is a good thing, it gives you power to fight, to go on. There must be a point where we have to realize that this miracle is not going to fall in our lap, we have to do something for it. But not this way, we must not let them ruin our lives. We should not have to sacrifice ourselves, our children and our future for lies and deception of a handful of people.

Please comment, I wold love to hear you opinion. Thank you :-)

Doctors on Strike

  We have a tendency to look at medical doctors in a special way. We think that they are some magical creatures, who can never be tired, with whom we can be rude and impatient, at whom we can yell, and we can completely disregard that they are human beings who work harder than almost any of us with more responsibility then all of us, since this is what they chose. They swore to take care of us in our hour of need, no matter what.

  Have you ever stopped for a moment to think, that to be a doctor one has to study the longest years in universities, that once they have done that they still have to go through the years of specializing, and even after that they can never stop studying? Or that they scarifies time from their personal lives and loved ones, because after work they still have to study or do some paperwork? Or that they work extremely long hours, sometimes with no rest, sleep or a lunch break, and even after 30 hours of work they still have to provide the same amount of attention to every detail as if they just have started to work? Or that there never seems to be enough of them? Or the conditions they have to work in? Or that they work under enormous amount of pressure, because they are responsible for other people`s lives? Or that they need to make hard decisions in seconds, because someone`s life is depending on it? Or that they put their lives in risk every day for us?

  Most people don’t think about what`s behind the scenes. They don’t think that when you are sitting in an office or in the emergency room and by being impatient and making a fuss you don’t just disturb the rest of the patients, you also disturb the work that’s going on. People think I am the most severe case, or I was here first…in this cases people tend to be selfish. They don’t care, that the doctor haven’t slept in 25 hours, or that s/he just had to deal with an aggressive drunk who had an accident, or that s/he might have a sick child at home, or that s/he is not getting paid for what he is doing.

  Doctors are public servants…and the point is on the servant. They are servants to us all. Who cares if they are underpaid or that they don’t get paid? We just want them to be there for us, when we need them, no matter what. 

  People think it’s wrong for them to strike, because then who will take care of me if I get sick, but people don’t think that, that doctor who treats me is struggling to provide for his/her family. Why is it wrong for them to stand up for themselves and say enough is enough? It’s not, since there is no one else who will. And now everyone can say that nobody stands up for other workers either unless it’s your own skin. But when doctors are not getting paid its everybody’s problem, not just theirs. Because one day or another we will all get sick and we would all want to see a doctor whose main concern is to treat us, and not their family`s livelihood.

  It is easy to think that strikes are about getting a raise, or shorter hours, or better working conditions, but they are not always about these. Sometimes people just want to get what is rightfully theirs. Although doctors would have a reason to strike for any of the three reasons I have mentioned above, they don’t. They strike to get their salaries for what they have worked for months ago, and put an end to cutting their salaries further down. 

  When doctors strike they don’t stop working all together like other workers, they continue to provide emergency services. Yet, most people still feel they should keep on working, like somehow they should only care about others and be there for others, when it seems that no one cares about them and there is no one there in their need of hour.
 

Please comment, I wold love to hear you opinion. Thank you :-)

Imagine there's no countries

John Lennon: Imagine

Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people living for today

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people living life in peace

You, you may say
I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one
I hope some day you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people sharing all the world

You, you may say
I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one
I hope some day you'll join us
And the world will live as one

     I want to live in a better world. In a much better world. People always say there is nothing you can do about it, the world is how it is... and one person can`t change it. Maybe they are right, but i believe that even one person can make a difference. We have to try, if we try we might fail, but if we don`t even try how we are going to explain it to our kids? How we are going to look in the mirror in couple years down the road? I know that most people think this is cliche, but I am truly filled up seeing our world in this state. I see young people being so disappointed in life, like they have nothing to live for. No future to look forward to. Parents that give up their kids, because they can`t feed or clothes them. Bright young people with diplomas without a work, and no hope of landing a job an time soon. Middle aged people, who got fired and they cant find an other job. Retired people who cant survive after a lifetime of work... And then you look around and what you see is war, diseases, hunger...Why did we let it go so far? Its a question I ask myself quiet often. When did we stop fighting? When did we decide that our kids wont need rainforests, birds, or clean air? Who told us that we have to obey the rich one percent of the world? When  did standing up for ourselves became a crime? We think we are lucky living in the democratic part of the world, and we look down with sad eyes on those, who don`t, but do we really have all those rights they say we do? What makes it alright to just stand by and let a small group of people decide for all of us? I don't think that blogging about it will change the world tomorrow, but I hope to see that there are a lot of people out there who feel or think similarly, and I hope that maybe together we can shake up the people and change something...