Thursday, August 23, 2007

All is right with the world.

Tonight hubby and I rented "The Pursuit of Happyness" from our On Demand cable. It's surprising sometimes how two hours can have such an effect on perspective. I get grumpy a lot because of things I have to deal with at work, or because my kids are fussy, or even because someone is driving closer than I would like to the back of my car. This movie made me think a lot harder about what's really important in life. Hubby and I have dealt with some money problems in our time, but things have never been so bad that we've had to take our kids and sleep in a public bathroom, or stand in line at a shelter just to have a room for a night.

I hope that in the future I can keep this in mind. That when I get upset about something, I can take a step back and think.. you know, things could be so much worse. Instead of stewing over something small, I should work on being more grateful for all the things I have.. my husband, my kids, even our annoying, whiny cat. We have a roof over our heads, a working vehicle, and there is always food in the refrigerator. Thinking back, I see proof every day that there are people who are not nearly as well-off as we are, but I'm usually so caught up with myself and my own problems, such as they are, that I don't notice. In fact, I'm pretty ashamed of that fact.. that I didn't even think about it until now.

To all the special people in my life, thank you for being there. Thank you for all that you've done for me, for encouraging me when I needed it, and for smacking me upside the head when I needed that. Each and every one of you is a blessing that I don't count nearly as often as I should. I love you all, so very much.

7 fellow footsteps:

Anonymous said...

That is a great movie isn't it?! I did the same thing when I watched it. As I tucked my kids in to bed that night a tear streamed down my face to see how content and happy they were and all was right with the world...then an hour later Tyler woke up screaming to get out of his bed, and I was slapped right back into reality! *LOL*

You're right, though it's easy to get sucked up into our black hole of despair thinking that we've got it bad when it could easily be A LOT worse!
Great post!!

Empress Bee (of the high sea) said...

i haven't seen the movie but this is a lovely post honey!

smiles, bee

Barb said...

I agree.. that movie has a wonderful message.

Linda said...

When I saw this movie it made me cry, too, for just the very reason you talk about and for one other. There is a scene in the movie where the son asks the father if it's his fault that his momma left them and that took me back to a few years ago when my second husband and I were getting divorced. I had always tried to explain to the girls that it wasn't any of their fault that the marriage didn't last but they were only 8 & 9 at the time and how do you explain that to a child? One day Jamie asked me if her Dad and I would have stayed together if she and Amanda had gotten along better, if maybe their constant squabbling had something to do with the divorce. It made me cry to think that my children were blaming themselves for something that their father and I couldn't fix as adults and that was one thing I had been trying to avoid by allowing him physical custody of the girls and trying to act like a mature adult about the whole thing.

It breaks your heart when you know that you've broken your children's hearts through no fault of theirs and that scene in this movie brought me right back to that moment. It really does make you think.

DirkStar said...

I got the exact same comment...

That's twice whoever it is has left his mark on my blog.

weird...

Amazing Gracie said...

I've heard alot about this movie - haven't seen it yet. I do this constantly, too. For some reason, we humans tend to forget this about our lot in life - that someone always has it worse off than we do. I watched the news when the judge sentenced that miserable little piece of crap to death for killing Jessica Lunsford today. I watched her dad get tears in his eyes again as the judge described the unspeakable horror she endured before she finally died. How can any of us ever understand what he feels? Hopefully, never. But it does put things in perspective - for a while...
~~~Blessings~~~

Rebecca said...

That movie had a huge imoact on me as well. Hugs to you, my friend.