A cracker of a question

Festive greetings to all. This year's Christmas crackers had the traditional jokes and trivia questions. This year they also had a question to put to the dinner party. The one that struck me this year was this.

"If you could be anybody else for a day, who would you be?"

We thought about this for some time. Before reading on, think about who you would be.

So what's the catch. The interesting thing is that when most people are asked they sought to pick someone rich, or famous, or a political leader. Somebody that represents something that they may be able to be (rich, famous, genius, talented etc etc).

This took me sort of by surprise. I had picked either a starving African or someone living in a war zone (Somalia, Afghanistan etc etc). I thought that being someone who is or would appear to one to be 'better' or 'better off' would be the wrong way around. Given that the desire to be someone rich or famous must be somewhat driven out of envy surely it would leave one living the remaining days of your life knowing what you would never have.

On the other hand, living a day in the life of a famine victim would no doubt change one's life for the better and leave you living the remainder of your life knowing how lucky one is to have anything at all. A day in their shoes would be an education beyond comparison.