gratitude
Why is it so easy to let our problems carry us away? Let them become the biggest, worst situations in the world? When, for the most part, they are often so trivial?
So often I let myself get swept up into a flood of self pity and frustration, fuming about midterms or problem sets or friends who are twenty minutes later to dinner meetings. How little, how easily forgettable are these trivialities? How is it that I can let myself get upset by the smallest, stupidest things, when close friends of mine are forced to live with issues whose importance far transcend my own?
Just the other day, while talking to two friends of mine, I learned so much about them that I had never even considered asking before. They’ve been living with such bigger life problems that, thank God, I’ve never had to deal with before. And they’re so thankful for the simple things I take for granted. In comparison to so many I feel like such a brat–why is it that I fail to resound gratitude for some of the simplest, most reliable things in my life?
What is it about human nature that makes us feel that our problems, our emotions, our pain is so much greater than that of those around us? There was an experiment conducted where people were connected to each other and were able to send each other shocks. There were different levels of shock administerable, and each person was told to “retaliate” shock the other person with the SAME force as they were subject to themselves. What should happen is that both participants should send equal shocks to each other. But what actually happens is that each person gives the other a slightly more forceful shock, believing their shock was actually bigger than it was, until the total shock escalates into something more painful. Somethign brutal.
When we should be grateful, we seem to want other people to feel our pain. More than our pain, in fact. We seem to want others to suffer.