An English teacher that I had once told me that we that we take for granted a lot of things which are gifts and one of those was sleep. He knew what he was talking about because he was an insomniac and spent his nights drinking alcohol trying to dull his mind into a foggy sleep.
Today, feeling good after a swim and sharing complaints about the weather I said to a colleague, “you know what, we have it easy” to which he replied, “ yeah, there are so many people worse off than us”. Thinking about it, I have a problem with his response. We often appreciate a lot of what we have by comparing it to what others do not have – which creates a potential for vulnerability e.g. to advertising and marketing campaigns. Because, for example, I may feel that I am not so fortunate when I compare myself to somebody who has more ‘free’ time or a bigger car than me and thereby ignore all the good things that I have.
The lesson is that we need to value ourselves more and we do this by being both grateful for all the good things we have and by stopping comparing ourselves to others.
