I know I should be thankful for everything that I have, for the life I have lived, for the life I have the opportunity to live. Especially since I've seen firsthand the lives of people that don't have even a tiny bit of the advantage I have or the opportunities I've had as a result.
Instead, I find myself complaining when I play a set of tennis poorly rather than remember how lucky I am to have been able to learn to play.
I turned down $20/hr English tutoring in China because I deemed it not worth my time, even though plenty of Chinese don't even make $20 a day.
At first I felt bad about attending my alma mater because it was only a top 10 school instead of top 5, though plenty of people in the world don't even get a high school education.
I should be thankful, but I feel differently. I've thought maybe it's because I've been fortunate that I feel guilty for not doing better, or that I feel like I should be able to reach an even higher level. Or maybe it's much simpler-- maybe I simply need to feel superior to other people, or at the very least, not inferior. An inferiority complex, perhaps. And then I think how ridiculous it is for me to feel this way when a migrant child in China is wondering whether they will be able to finish school or a black child in the inner city is wondering if he will live to see his 21st birthday.
Thursday, March 15, 2007
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2 comments:
My take:
There will always be people "better off" than you and there will always be people "worse off" than you.
So it's almost pointless to compare because just when you think you're the shit, someone else's shit will smell way better than yours.
Just do the best you can and everything else will figure itself out in the end.
The past is done, so there's nothing you can do to really change that. You can do something about today, though, and the more time we spend feeling sorry for ourselves, the less time we have working toward something really great.
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