How hard is it to be grateful for what we have? How hard is it to say, “I’m grateful for what I already have; for all the good things happening in my life,” before cursing everyone and everything for the things we don’t yet have? I mean life is not that simple for us to have everything we need let alone everything we want or desire. Being grateful should have been the simplest and most natural feeling; but somehow many of us fail to recognize this fact. Most of us fail to see what is there under our very eyes, we fail to understand there are those who for no reason of their own don’t enjoy half the blessings we do.
Yes wanting more as long as it isn’t about greed and at the expense of others. I mean we want more of things we have or even things we don’t. (That’s weird! How is it possible to want ‘more’ of things one doesn’t have? I mean more is about making two, three or five, isn’t it?) Anyway it seems that rather than feeling grateful for what we have and then looking ahead most of us practically forget what we actually possess, or even, to put some emphasis to it all, we forget what we’re blessed with; because in these times of chaos and uncountable troubles the world over, in these times when things can no more be taken for granted, in these times when there are many who are much worse conditions than we’re in for no fault on their side, saying “Thanks!” for what we have is wisdom as wisdom comes. There is the tendency when we find ourselves in some hot waters we prefer to pour cold water over all the positive things we enjoy.
I chose to talk about this issue because of a couple of incidents which happened recently. In the first instance the behavior of this middle age fellow suddenly takes an 180o turn and begins accusing even cursing everyone. It was sort of him on one side and the whole community on the other. All of a sudden the fellow who took life in strides perfect and measured for the times is claiming the world is after him. At a certain informal gathering he says, “Everyone is evil. There isn’t a single innocent person!” That was a very strong and biting statement to make especially in the presence of his supposedly good even best friends. I mean once you use the term ‘everybody’ exceptions wouldn’t come easy.
Ok, let’s give him the benefit of the doubt and he had a couple of points to be angry about like the rest of us would have been. He wasn’t having a good time at his work place and seems to have locked horns with the brass for reasons still not fully known. Now, this isn’t a guy one could blame for inefficiency, laziness or all those negative attributes which reflect on job performances. In fact, he is a well appreciated member of the staff. But then he gets into this disagreement with the brass. (Believe me when it comes to the brass in many of the places they know how to gang up. It much of the time behaves as a sort of fraternity where members look after each other’s backs. It is not a question of the viability of grievances or the complainants really being the victims. Yes, bumping heads with the brass is seldom an experience worthy of being inserted in the memory archives!)
So, of the little known of the case the rumors are that a newly arrived staff member was working the nuts and bolts to have him kicked out. Why is he to have him kicked out? That, dear readers, is the riddle. The new guy, so it is said, seems to have some strings attaching him with the superiors. Now our guy, understandably is very frustrated all the more because the brass seems to be sympathizing with the guy trying to make him jobless.
As if this wasn’t enough trouble some family problems were the offing in his marriage of more than a decade, allegedly with the interference of some third party. Here for some reason his better half seems to be having second thoughts about keeping the marriage alive and running. No one knows what she has been fed with but the invisible third party seem to be having their way. Now it’s only natural for anyone in his situation to be angry. Here comes the slip for our guy. He seems to have put everyone and anyone in the enemy camp while his problems were isolated and concerning a handful of people. What’s more he’s claiming that he didn’t have what he ‘deserves’ in life and blames everyone for it! In the process he’s slowly loosing people who were very close to him.
A couple of close friends, so it’s said, tried to talk him to calm down offering to be by his side in his time of problems and hardships. They tried to reason with him that he shouldn’t lose friendships he has been building since his school days. They failed! The guy didn’t budge. He tells them in their faces he trusts no one and that comes as sort of the next to the final nail to the coffin of lost friendships. His closest friends one by one slip away.
Now as to the complaints he wasn’t leading the life he deserved that those who know believe was being ungrateful. Given his income he led a fairly comfortable life. And what’s more his friends have always been by his and his family’s side whenever the need arises. He started saying he deserved more, and his wasn’t a life he deserved and who takes the blame? Everybody else. In fact, as we said given his income and his dinner table being always full he should have been the most grateful person for the life he leads. By the way he’s the father of two girls in their early teens and attending a private school.
Whatever the difficulties we are in, whatever the demons making our lives harder are, there is always the healing magic in the words, “Grateful for what I have!”
The Ethiopian Herald April 28/2014
