I am an early bird and get in at work at about 7:00 am. As I was walking into work this morning it was dark, windy, cold and showery. I mumbled something you don’t want to know about as I walked resolutely on, and grumbled quite a bit. However, I immediately bit my tongue and chided myself as I thought about where I live and how lucky I am to live my life the way I do. A quick reckoning of the pros and cons quickly convinced me that I am indeed very fortunate to enjoy the quality of life I do. A cold, late autumn early morning is a minor inconvenience – a useful and interesting punctuation mark perhaps in an otherwise peaceful, pleasant and quite wonderful existence.
I live in what I think is a very beautiful city: Melbourne is a lovely clean, safe city, blessed with many magnificent public buildings, great facilities for entertainment, education, leisure, public gatherings, theatre, arts, sport. It is a city that is easy to get around in, has a good standard of living, nice people (mostly :-) and has a good climate – not too hot during the summer not too cold during the winter. It is a hub of culture, the arts, sport and has a good, year-round selection of fresh produce available in its many markets. There is a wealth of interesting cafés and restaurants that are of very high quality and the cost of living is not excessively high by world standards.
I am lucky enough to have a rewarding, satisfying job, good friends and loving family and a stable, comfortable life that offers me what many people around the world can only dream about. It is churlish to sit and think that my life is unpleasant or beset by problems and countless issues. In evaluating all I have the only feeling I can muster is gratitude. I am indeed blessed with a life that is wonderful.
It is a good thing to stop and do this little evaluation whenever we feel down, displeased with our lot, angry or exasperated. Bringing to mind the millions of people around the world that have much more pressing, or even life-threatening problems to cope with every moment of the day is enough to make one a little more circumspect about complaining and grumbling about non-issues, relatively speaking…
People are aspirational and have a right to better themselves ... at the expense of others.
ReplyDeleteWise and worthwhile words, Nick. Most people in our society would have happier lives if they counted their blessings from time to time.
ReplyDeleteWise words!
ReplyDeleteWell expressed feelings.