Short men are happy, for they can pass easily through the door. Tall men are happy, for they can stand erect and pluck oranges with their hands. Again, short men are angry, for they cannot stand erect and pluck oranges with their hands. Again, tall men are angry, for they cannot pass easily through the door. ~ Michael Bassey Johnson
There's a virus circulating on social media sites. It's the same contagion we're vulnerable to when we go to the grocery store, turn on the TV or text on our cells. We're so susceptible that most of us have been passive hosts since childhood. We became infected by phrases like: You should be grateful, others have it so much worse...
It's embedded in the thoughts that comfort us, sometimes dormant, sometimes flaring up. We reflexively think it and often speak it: Comparatively speaking...
Comparatively speaking the weather is good; the pay is fine; the pain is manageable; the loss is less...
If my contentment lies in anything beyond my present reality, it's fragile at best and worse yet, it's a covetous contentment. The contentment of relativity says I can only find my stability, peace, serenity, bliss in relationship to the lesser security, peace, contentment, and happiness of another.
It's the It could be worse syndrome. Yes things could always be worse but that isn't gratitude that's just fatalism. It could just as well be better and that certainly isn't gratitude, that's greed.