Perspective

Recently I was working on a repair that I had to finish in the house. I live a few miles outside of a small town and I had tried to gather all the tools and parts I needed in town the day before. I try not to have to waste gas and run into town for every little thing. However as most projects go I ran into a snag and needed a part I had not expected. So, into town I had to go.

I was a little irritated that I had to drive into town but it did offer a little bit of a break so it wasn't that big of an issue for me. While in town I realized I hadn't eaten so I stopped off at the deli and grabbed a sandwich. Of course if I was in town that also meant that I was going to have to get a coffee. A trip into town wouldn't be complete without coffee.

So, off to the store I went with a full stomach and happy coffee taste buds. I could not find the part that I needed. I looked at two different stores, the only ones in my small town that would have had what I needed and I just couldn't find it. The part I needed was of course out of stock. That is life in a small town sometimes.

So I started to head home and I started feeling more and more irritated. It wasn't about the fact this small town didn't have what I wanted, I do not at all mind paying a small price to live where I do. What I was getting irritated at was the fact that I....the ever so important Otter had been inconvenienced. How inconvenient it was for me to have to stop what I was doing, to have to go to town, to look at two different stores and then to come up empty in the long run.

Apparently in the big cosmic scheme of things, the ever spiraling universe forgot how important I am and how important my time is. I had many other important things I could have been doing. I am after all an artist!!! I could have been harnessing the chaos of flame and liquid glass, ushering forth a frozen world of shape and movement and...at this point in time I start thinking maybe I am taking my artist's statement a little to seriously. In fact maybe I have taken myself too seriously.

You need to understand that by this time I am fuming, I am pacing back and forth...in my head at least and I am agitated I had just wasted so much of my life. I was totally living in some egocentric fantasy world where I was the major gravitational force and how dare the universe forget it's place. I have been wronged, inconvenienced and I have not had instant gratification at my will. I started mentally proclaiming my own victimhood and for a moment I think I really started believing it.

Enter rational and humbling thought finally. I have a friend in Africa, his name is Marcel. I have not heard from in quite some time. He is a wonderful person very happy, full of love, full of life and laughter. You will never hear a negative word or opinion or insinuation come out of his mouth. He has to ride a bicycle or walk several miles each morning to get several gallons of water for his family from a common town water pump. If he does not get the water, his family has nothing at all to drink. He lives below the poverty level even for where he lives. The first time he came to the United States and went inside a grocery store he cried because of the obscene abundance we have here. However he is content with what life gives him and he is one of the happiest men I know.

I started thinking that Marcel, would not have complained about walking several miles for water for his family, he in no way would have complained about having the luxury of driving. What about the luxury of buying food at the deli....or buying a gourmet coffee. I started feeling pretty selfish and pretty arrogant. Marcel is 100 times the man I will ever be. He has qualities of compassion, love and tolerance I can only dream of attaining. Yet here I am feeling angry because I have been "inconvenienced". What a petty person I can become when I take myself seriously, when I think that my opinion matters so much. Or that me or my time matter so much.

I became very thankful I had a car, that I had water, that I had money, that I did not have to worry about being able to feed my children. I was thankful that my arrogance had stung me so hard, perhaps less and less I will have that struggle. To anyone I have offended because of my arrogance, lack of compassion or any other reason, I am sincerely sorry.

Tonight I was looking through photos from The Library of Congress online resources and came across these photos. They just struck me because of the way I have been feeling lately. They just kind of put things in perspective for me today. They are from the Great Depression era and from the dust bowl era. These people had it hard, I have no right to complain about life's little bumps in the road. I am humbled and inspired by them.