Friday, November 06, 2009

And It's Not Even Thanksgiving Yet

I've cheered up. I never seem to stay down for long. Today a friend and I were counting our blessings, and we just kept thinking of more and more. She's a social worker so she sees a lot of people who are in desperate straits financially and don't necessarily have support networks to help them out - so one illness, one accident, or one downsizing is all that stands between them and ruin. We're so lucky that we're shielded from that kind of poverty, that we have families we could always go back to, that our options for employment are varied. Losing our jobs wouldn't be the end of the world for us. We're young and in good health. We both have the babies we always wanted and dreamed of having, and husbands we love dearly who cherish us. Neither of us has ever lost a parent, a sibling, or a close friend. The world is full of perils, but we're insulated from the worst of them. As we talked together, we felt better and better.

It's funny because we started out talking about all the things we're scared of - H1N1, rape, random violence. But then we just deliberately started thinking about how, more than likely, the worst wouldn't befall us. Which is not to get cocky about it - you never know what fate might have in store for you. But it is better to live appreciating your relative good fortune from day to day, than to live in fear of a multitude of disasters.

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