by Robert Reardon, Columnist
("Eye to the Future" is a column published in each issue of The Humanitarian, the newsletter for Humanitarian Society members.)

Just as we begin to think ourselves invincible or when we start feeling we have it "made," life can deal us a tremendous blow. What's more, there can be no reason for it and not necessarily any cause for it. Like the path of a hurricane it can be unpredictable and devastating. This point was drivien home to me six months ago in April when, as I was simply walking down a fairway at the annual Houston Open golf tournament, I suffered what turned out to be a seriously detached retina in my right eye. I was in serious danger of being able to "eye the future" with only one of my two eyes.

That has all changed now and I am healing very well. There is a good chance my eye will recover to a 20/20 correctible vision. Among other things what I learned is that adversity will come in life. It is not a matter of if, only when it will come. What I also learned is that it is how we handle adversity which can sometimes define our worth as a human being, not the volume of our external collectibles. Being part of the Humanitarian Society gives us all a chance, while we are healthy and solvent, to help others who may have encountered adversity. Now that I have been on the receiving end of enormous support, emotional and financial, I no longer think of this as charity. No, I think of it as our obligation while well to assist those who are not Remember that as the Humanitarian Society helps others some day one of those "others" may very well be "me."