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Life sometimes corrects our priorities

I have to confess that many times my priorities for a given day are selfish ones. I am even ashamed of that. Because of my job as a writer and a teacher, many days my main concern is to find the proper translation of a given word or the example I need to teach a certain idea.

However, there are times when life corrects our priorities. That’s what happened to me when I recently met a young couple whose daily problems went well beyond my concerns about translations or class planning. For this couple, the daily priority was to find enough food and not to lose their home.

This couple called me so many times and they were so adamant in wanting to talk with me and I broke my self-impose protocol and visited them in their own home, instead of asking them to come to my office. I learned both husband and wife went through very difficult times and now, in spite of their best efforts, they are unable to find good jobs to provide for their children.

They are both immigrants; full of enthusiasm, but with little formal education. They have been in the United States for several years, but they have not developed a good understanding of English, so they are stuck in low-paying jobs. Previously that was not a big problem, but now they have two children and therefore a bigger challenge.

He is unemployed and she works only a few hours per week. Due to recent changes in state laws and to cuts in state and federal budgets, the benefits this couple receives will soon run out, including child care, complicating even more the search for a good job.

In addition, he did try to open his own company, but he didn’t receive good advice about how to become an entrepreneur.

I know very well this is also the situation of thousands and thousands of people all over the country. And I also know this situation -even with all its challenges- it is many times better than the life-or-death situations millions of people experience in the most forgotten and devastated places of the world.

However, I am not talking about a couple in a remote corner of Africa or in a small village in Haiti. (By the way, we should also help people in those and other places in need.)  I am talking about a couple facing hunger, homelessness, and a uncertain future for them and for their children in the middle of one of the most affluent neighborhoods in metro Denver.

Nothing seems to reveal that amid homes with garages for several cars in neighborhoods with manicured yards and enviable recreation centers there is a young couple almost forgotten by society and struggling to make ends meet.

I wonder how many more people, citizens or immigrants, face similar problems. I wonder what it would take us to open our eyes to those problems and, in doing so, change and challenge our own daily priorities.

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