World of possibility coexisting with a world without

Yesterday I walked through the streets of Philadelphia. Needing to be out in the air. Needing to breathe after being in intense meetings. And what I saw were two different worlds coexisting. Touching but not interacting.
There were so many homeless people or street people everywhere I walked. Begging for money. Pleading for money. Making my heart ache. I had to stop looking at them. Stop looking in their eyes because I would have gone home without a penny. I would have given them everything I had. But I didn't  because I knew deep inside I could not help them all.  I worried that if I gave them money they would not use it wisely. I worried about which one to help. So I did not. I just walked on.
But the guilt of my abundance and their lack of it consumed me. Made me feel ill. Tears are still welling in my eyes as I think about all the wastage in the world. While there are so many people going without. So many people that have lost their way. So many people struggling to survive.
Watching people like myself dressed in suits walking past these people who have nothing. Into our worlds of abundance and excess while the people we walked past have nothing. Stopping me from shopping because I realised I really don't need anything else materially. Particularly after seeing the street people carrying all of their possessions with them in bundles. Forcing me to think about what's important. About why I feel the need to buy more when I have so much already.
What am I afraid of that I need to buy more? Am I in no better position than the people on the street? The ones whose eyes have lost the light. The ones who seemed to be imprisoned in their own minds. Am I any better off than they are? Am I lost in acquiring more rather than finding my own inner peace? Are we all?
I thought about why my life is the way it is and their lives are the way they are. Questioned how two different worlds can coexist without merging. Without colliding. Making me wonder why the city felt so grimy to me. So dark almost like there was no light.
I thought about my life and all the choices I have. Knowing it's because I have put myself in a position that allows me to make choices. Thought about those people lying on the sidewalk. Sheltering in the doorways out of the cold. Those holding their hands out to anyone who would entertain them. And thought about how pride does not exist in their lives. How ego has no place in their world. My mind lingered on  how vacant their eyes looked. Of how wild and afraid their eyes looked. Of how dull their eyes look.
I remember the lack of passion in all of their eyes. Like the light has been stripped out of their beings. Leaving them as mere shells rather than as living light beings. Taking me back to the words  of TD Jakes speaking about the need for us all to have purpose in our lives. Reminding me that I must pursue my passion whatever way possible so I don't lose my way. Because without passion there is no purpose. And that's what I saw in the faces of all those people I walked by. No passion and hence no purpose.
And then I understood why there are two worlds coexisting side by side. It's because there is a world where people believe in possibility and a world where they don't. A constant reminder to us all that we are not defined by our circumstances. Rather we are defined by the way we respond to our circumstances. Sometimes it takes a jolting situation to remind us to be grateful every single day for eveything we have. To have empathy and compassion for all those we encounter because they are a reflection of our inner most souls. A reminder of the fact that there are merely six degrees of seperation between us all.