Me, My, Mine

Recently, I came across a young child who was diagnosed with leukemia (a cancer of the bone marrow in which abnormal types and amounts of cells are made). The medical team tries to find a matching bone marrow to conduct a bone marrow transplant and finally found one matching bone marrow donor.

When contacted, the donor is more than happy to save a life and his wife is supportive of his decision to donate his own bone marrow. He went through a series of health check and tests. The final consultation with the doctor was quite positive.

In asia culture, it is considered filial to seek parent’s blessing and approval before donating any part of the body. When doing so, he encountered huge disapproval from his parents. Reason being the patient is unrelated and is not necessary to take the risk and cause harm to own health.

It is so sad but I think to certain extent, we are all selfish in certain ways, especially when it comes to things that we deem to belong to us. My son, my bag, my computer. It is ok for someone’s PC to crash but not mine. It is ok for someone to suffer but not me and my family. We just don’t feel the same pain we will feel if these things or events happen to others versus “me”.

It is because of our selfish thoughts that we tend to forget that we are all interdependent in this world. The bread that we eat came about from the effort of many other people. From the people who sell them, to the people who bake them, to the people who sell the flour, eggs, even to the people who plant wheat and rear chicken. How many people that we do not known of are involved in the process?

We cannot live alone in this world, we are interdependent of each other. Only when we discard our selfishness and learn to be grateful to each other, this world will be a better world.

PS: To find out more about donating bone marrow to save lives, please visit

http://www.marrow.org/

http://www.bmdp.org/