I won’t complain. Not today. Not about anything. And certainly not before considering all the suffering around me. There are wives who have lost their brave Veteran husbands in an ambush in Niger. These women woke up today forced to deal with the fact that they will be raising their babies without their spouse. There are people in Sierra Leone who’ve lost their family members in mudslides that buried their homes in the blink of an eye, and left the living in disbelief and despair.
There are families who recently lost loved ones at the hands of a domestic terrorist in Las Vegas, lives snatched from them by a man who decided to murder people as they simply enjoyed music, during a night out. There are hundreds of thousands of people without food, water, or medicine in Puerto Rico, and all over our world. These stories and images tear at my heart and render me unable to complain about my life.
Consider also, that there are people struggling and suffering everywhere, people with severe disabilities, cancer, sick parents and children and issues we can’t even wrap our brains around, and they keep getting up and keep finding a way to live on. This video sums it up and forces us to put things in perspective.
So no, today, I won’t complain. And I encourage you to follow suit. Before you open your mouth to talk about how bad your life is, or complain about the traffic, your boss, the neighbor, financial situations etc, just give a moment of silence to others who are hurting and in need of comfort and basic necessities.
Today, instead of my own pity party, I will list the things I am grateful for and meditate on those things, while sending out heartfelt prayers, love and peace to others.