A Lesson About Thankfulness and Complaining

Since the school year is over and my schedule has dwindled down, I watch a ton of Netflix. A. Ton. I am milking this down time before starting grad school. The other night I was having a binge on one of my new favorites, Chasing Life. It's a rom-com/drama about a woman named April who has leukemia and is dealing with every day life while battling this illness. I ,for one, have never seen how cancer affects a person first hand. Yes I have known and lost family members from cancer, read about it, and heard people discuss it, but it's always different when it's someone you know really well. 

It puts things into perspective when you actually see a person in a certain predicament, and experience it with them. I get pretty attached to my favorite tv show characters, so of course by Episode 5 I felt like me and April were best friends. I'm sure I sound like a total goober finding inspiration from a tv show, but hey you get your inspiration from wherever you get it. 

There was a line in the show where her doctor said, "if you do not get treatment immediately, you only have 2-6 weeks to live." Man. Hearing someone say those words out loud really threw me off. It may only be a tv show, but that is the reality for some people in real life. This really made me think. I'm sitting over here distraught over the fact that I ran out of my Bath & Body Works Holiday scents while there are people dealing with problems like this somewhere else in the world. Now I feel pretty ridiculous.  

Since that day, I have been trying to refocus my thoughts and stop complaining. I have so many things to thank God for, and I have begun a new strategy to find joy in everything. Whenever a complaint comes to mind, I stop and think of a reason why I am thankful for the exact thing I am complaining about. 

- Elevated gas prices are super annoying, but I'm thankful that I am in a place financially where I can even afford to pay for it and take care of my car.   

- Listening to my mom nag can get frustrating, but how blessed am I to have a mom who cares enough to call me and nag me at all? There are people out there who would die to have a mom like mine. 

I've taken on the same strategy when it comes to questioning my body, and the things that I do not like. For example, I have very strange and wide feet. My toes are on the chubby side, and my 2nd toe is longer than the first (tmi?). Anyways, at one point these things used to really bother me, but there are people who do not even have ligaments - people who had them amputated and people who were not born with them at all. 

Once you put things into perspective, you realize that you sound pretty silly complaining - especially when it is about something that you cannot even change. Never stop counting your blessings, and reminding yourself of the reasons why you should be grateful for every single thing that you have. 

I of course am not a perfect human so at some point a complaint may slip out my mouth, but my goal is to continue to work on it. 

I hope you found a bit of inspiration from my little rant. Let me know your thoughts in the comments.

xo, Deija