Thought for the day...

I'm not one for sentimentality and cheesy forwarded emails with cute puppy dogs n' doleful looking kittens. But I read on KTB's blog about a girl I remember from work events in my youth, who suffered a terribly painful disease. And I realised how much I complain about life - my ills, my woes, my stresses... without actually having much wrong. Unlike the girl in KTB's blog, who recently passed away from cancer, at the age of 19. She had so much of life still to see and experience, and it seems so cruel that she has been denied that chance.

The thing is,of course, that I always will complain. I am, like almost anyone you or I know, inherently selfish. And I thought to myself: "Y'know what? Everyone has that right - we have the right to niggles and troubles. We have the right to talk about our issues and expect a sympathetic ear. Life isn't carefree - and my stresses may seem inconsequential to your stresses, but I still have the right to feel troubled by them. Because to me, they ARE gargantuan problems, even if they just seem like little hiccups on the path of life - once they are solved, of course."

But sometimes, I really think about the opportunities I have been given in life. I am lucky in so many ways. I have some truly loyal, trustworthy, wonderfully brilliant friends who do 'complete me' (but not in the Jerry McGuire sense). I have a strong, loving family - who endure months of me travelling around and reporting back intermittently (as in, when I remember) and never (OK, rarely) hold it against me. I have a job which is alternately fulfilling AND challenging. Oh, and it pays OK, too. And I have colleagues who do their best to keep me laughing and smiling throughout the day. I'm not poor (even when I think I am). I eat well. I am reasonably healthy (and the ill-health is self induced, so who's complaining?). I have, in every sense of the word, A GOOD LIFE.

Which I frequently fail to appreciate fully.

And then, every once in a while a story (such as the one today) about someone less fortunate than myself will come along, and I stop. And I think. And I consider all the joys I fail to see in my life because I'm consumed with stresses about singledom, or money, or school.

It is only then that I realise - the people who most deserve happiness in life are usually the ones who are denied it.

And so, I reconcile myself and my guilt that I am not someone who deserves so much happiness at the expense of others - and I resolve to be a better person. And I think hard about everything I have today, and I promise myself to be truly grateful for my continuing health and happiness, and to remember to appreciate such things every day.