Count your blessings. Daily.

I woke up, terrible pain in my left side woke me up actually, and I wandered around moaning about it to anyone within earshot as I tried to just continue on with life as normal. All the while thinking “what now? why me?”.
Later in the morning, pain subsiding after a few Advils and a brief Google search to see which side appendix pain or gallbladder pain normally is (the right apparently), I was at work and received some news that stopped me complaining.  An ex-cohort and wife of a friend of mine was fighting for her life in hospital, taken down by complications from the flu.  Needless to say, it made my ailments pale in comparison to the point of almost feeling guilty for having mentioned it out loud.

We all do it, get tied up in our own lives and little part of the world, blinders on to the big picture or to the possibility of serious problems that make our little peeves and complaints seem minuscule.  It’s easy to do, for most of us anyway. (thankfully there are those who put others first all the time with little or no appreciation or acknowledgement despite their own problems or restrictions, martyrs if you will, or more often than not “moms”, but I’m getting off point here.)

I guess all I’m trying to say is, Count your blessings.  Appreciate what you have, instead of complaining about what you don’t, or moaning about the little problems too much.  Live each day as if its your last, and I know its been said many times before, don’t forget to let those around you know how you feel about them.  You may not have time or opportunity to say it later.

barkerp

New Year, new possibilities.

Happy New Year!
We all say it for the next few days, some of us spent the last night of last year awaiting its arrival and bringing it in in a drunken haze, others watching the fireworks or a ball drop, what-have-you, we all celebrate its arrival in our own way, but after the first couple of days of getting used to writing 2013 instead of 2012, most just carry on without any change.
I say lets treat it as a chance to actually make a change, do something different, something you’ve been putting off or better yet something that scares you a little. It’s a new year, full of potential and possibilities, make a decision to at least try something new to celebrate it.
It is like a new day, fresh and ready to be embraced. Unless of course you are hung over, then maybe give it a day and start tomorrow, we’ll wait.

Barkerp