Practicing Gratitude
Land of the free, because of the brave.
Yesterday was a bit of a challenge for our family. A minor challenge, but a disturbance into our regularly scheduled programming.
Our two plans for the morning got cancelled - both places we tried to go were full up, nobody else allowed in. The neighborhood sprayground? Both kids erupted in tears when this circular spray machine nailed all of us at random. So we bailed and got back into the car and said OK, what’s next? Lunch?
Our afternoon plans? Cancelled - a few of us started feeling a cough come on, and one of the family was having what we call “big feelings” about not being able to go.
In the grand scheme of things, the ability to have three things go sideways and to have the main challenge be ‘huh, that’s wild - where should we have other people make us food?’ is - in reality - a gift.
We can’t forget that the reason we can consider playtime being cancelled a conundrum - it’s because we don’t have to fight for our health/safety day to day. My problems? Overall… they’re not really problems. I’ve had that panic moment where I lost my job and lived on white rice and tap water for about a week before I realized that I wasn’t actually going to get evicted from my apartment... I had 3 - 6 months of expenses saved up, depending on how I played it. So, things weren’t DIRE.
The changes I’d have to make if surviving until to tomorrow was my main concern would be STAGGERING. One of the best men in my wedding is a Marine that served multiple tours and my closest friend in my neighborhood has an Army background, serving in multiple regions in a specialized capacity. They don’t share a ton of information about the things they went through in their service, but the scenarios these young men found themselves in were WILD compared to 27 year old me trying to land a gig that wasn’t cold-call sales based.
So looking back at yesterday when it felt like nothing went according to plan, you’ve gotta just shake it off because that’s not even remotely close to a real challenge or struggle that American soldiers go through.
It’s a great reminder that this is the land of the free, because of the brave. We have a lot to be thankful for, so let’s make sure to remember to practice gratitude for the soldiers that sacrificed everything in order to give us a life of ease.