Heightism spits in the face of the miracle of life.

Becoming a parent really makes you appreciate just how much of a miracle life really is. You realise the overwhelming odds that your child had to overcome just to be a part of this world. The million to one chance meeting between the particular sperm and the particular egg that make your child unique. The perils and dangers of early pregnancy that can prevent a child from reaching maturity. Not to mention the dangers of labour. Being born at all is truly amazing.
If you want to look at this mathematically just check out this website. http://members.shaw.ca/tfrisen/chances_of_you_existing.htm

The site concludes that the chances of person existing as

If you go back 1 million years it would take 42 x 10⁴⁰³¹⁴⁹ universe lifetimes to definitely result in you.
42 with 403,149 zeros after the 42 of it lifetimes of the Universe

Even without examining the maths involved I can't help but feel a sense of awe when I look at my little boy. Mere months ago it was just us and now, from nowhere, there is this other little person.

That is part of the reason I feel filled with a heavy sadness when I encounter heightism or any 'ism' that makes people feel bad about their precious human lives.

How much time do we waste feeling negative about our bodies because they are not 'tall enough' or not 'thin enough' or not the 'right shape'? How much negativity is created worrying about having the 'wrong hair' or the 'wrong skin colour'?

To me even one second spent feeling negative about your physical appearance is a second wasted. It honestly doesn't matter.

Buddhism asks us to focus on death quiet a lot. It is a motivation that we use to examine our lives, to makes us question ourselves and to think and behave differently. We even have mental exercises that help us to prepare for death as many Buddhists believe that your state of mind as you lay dying is essential to how you are reborn.

It is important to die without attachment and regret and to free yourself from negativity. We imagine what we might feel when we are dying and how to deal with those thoughts.

When I do this exercise I imagine that I will think

• 'I wish I'd been kinder to my parents'.
• 'I wish I'd been kinder in general'.
• 'I wish I'd been a better friend'.

But the one thing I imagine I will overwhelmingly think is

• 'I wish I hadn't spent so much time worrying about things that didn't matter'.

If you have been effected by heightism just imagine how much time that heightism has forced you to spend feeling negative about your body and about yourself. How many minutes, hours and days have you spent over the course of your life so far feeling that your size makes you somehow inadequate? That if only you were taller that your life would somehow take a more positive direction?

That time has been stolen from you by Heightism. That time that you could have spent so much more productively. That self doubt that has prevented you from going down life paths that may have been great for you.

That is why Heightism spits in the face of the miracle that of life. Your life is amazing, don't waste it letting others make you feel bad.