Count Your Blessings, Complainers

This is to all the young people out there. The people I see everyday at school, the boy down the road, my pen pal from Minnesota. This is to my fellow teens who at times get so caught up in their problems and everyday worries that they forget what really matters. I know you’re out there. I hear you every day and at times I sound a lot like you do.

“I’m so depressed. School is boring. I have better things to do with my time. I hate my parents! Stupid rules. I hate authority! I don’t have to take this crap. Life is so unfair…”

This time I’ve got something else to say.

Imagine you are in kindergarten again. Close your eyes and imagine you are 5. Small, scared, and in kindergarten. Now imagine that you’re 5 but not in kindergarten. You’re in India. You’re not sitting in a classroom with shiny new shoes on; you’re sitting in a lonely, dark corner, naked. You’re scared. Not because you have a new teacher or because the boy across from you looks kind of funny; you’re scared because you just realized that you haven’t seen your mother for a week now and you’ll probably never see her again. You’re scared because the girl crouched next to you has been sleeping for the past two days and she doesn’t feel warm anymore.

You hear the plaintive cries of many terrified children around you, and you cry, too. Your voice is weak and your eyes are dry. No tears come; you’re too dehydrated.

As you sit and sob, your body shudders. You forget your fears and pray. You pray for food, for comfort, for sleep. You begin to doze but quickly jerk yourself awake.

You look at the girl next to you, and you’re scared again. You’re afraid that if you fall asleep, you might not wake up, or worse, that you will.

Now think about things again. Try to look at your life from a different perspective.

Sure, school may not be the most exciting thing around, but at least you have the opportunity to go to school.

Your parents may be a drag sometimes, but hey, guess what, you’ve got parents! Maybe even two of them.

You’ve got a roof over your head and probably even food on your plate. Meals! One, two, possibly three meals a day.

And if you’ve got a curfew, hey, your parents must really care about you! Seriously, when was the last time you stopped, thought about what you were doing, and realized how lucky you are?

You’re not a starving child in India. You’re here, in America.

You can go to school. You can eat. You can go to sleep and be pretty close to positive that you’re going to wake up. You have clothing, food and a billion-and-one opportunities.

You can take them or leave them, but either way you’ve got them, and that’s more than many can say.

xxxx