If you have a roof over your head…
If you don’t have to worry about your next meal…
If you have well-wishers in your life…
If you don’t live in constant fear that today will be your last day on this earth…
If you have the choice of an education…
If you can choose your career…
If you have a job…
If.. If.. If..
If you have any of these countless privileges in life, you are fortunate.
“First-world problems” has become a cliche term now. But it is a hard truth. Sure, higher standards of living come with their own set of problems and our yardsticks for success and happiness are proportionally longer. However, a lot of us who even have the luxury of accessing the internet and reading this blog without hearing bomb shells in the distance, have the benefit of choice – and the dilemmas that come with it. But these are the good kind of problems to have.
It is hard to remember this when we are going through a hard time – whether it is just a bad day at work or the loss of a loved one. Because thinking about the guy in a wheelchair when you are walking barefoot doesn’t exactly ease the pain in your soles.
I have realised that the key thing is to remind ourselves about these privileges during the normal and half-bad days – the days when nothing spectacular or horrible happened and the days when just couple of things went wrong. You don’t need to watch a refugee camp video for reminders, just start noticing small things around you – revel in others’ happy moments, enjoy the weather – whatever defines happiness for you.
Our mind is a muscle. The more we train ourselves to think this way, the more it will become second nature. And eventually they will help you get through those truly dark times.
Of course the very first step is to truly accept and acknowledge to ourselves that we are indeed fortunate.
Daily Contemplations 
So beautifully written. Each and every word, opinion and idea came across the way it was meant to. It was like you said all the right things at just the right juncture in your post.
Some of the lines that hit me truly hard :
“But these are the good kind of problems to have”
“Because thinking about the guy in a wheelchair when you are walking barefoot doesn’t exactly ease the pain in your soles”
Then the part about our mind being a muscle and how it just needs to be trained – different, hopeful and optimistic way of thinking.
And that first step is truly the hardest to accept – atleast for me. Because it means taking much more responsibility for our actions and looking at life with more hope and optimism.
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Thank you so much! That last line you said is so true – bearing that responsibility is a consistent challenge.
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