I want you to think about the last meal you had. Where were you sitting? Did you use silver utensils or plastic utensils? Did you prepare just enough to fill you up – or did you have to toss some out? Now think about your last shower. Do you prefer hot long showers – or lukewarm short ones? How about going to sleep last night. Did the blankets get messed up – or did they remain neat so it was easy to make your bed the next morning? We can answer just about all of these questions with little to no hesitation. Agreed? Okay.

If you are faint of heart, this article isn’t for you. For those who aren’t, I am challenging you to think deeply and answer honestly to yourself as you read this.

In my introduction, I asked a series of questions that were easy to answer, right? Well, now I’m about to get real and be blunt. How freaking lucky are we to answer those questions? We have enough food to fill our bellies, we have hot water to relax us at the end of the day, and we have soft beds with blankets – but imagine if we didn’t? What if we didn’t know when we’d eat, or if we’d have enough water to wash ourselves? What if we couldn’t sleep because, right beside us, our crying sibling was having their skin eaten away by the acid of a chemical bomb? Yeah, sounds pretty awful.

We see these horrible things broadcasted on the news regularly. Some of us watch, heartbroken, others change the channel because it’s too sad. But we don’t do anything. We don’t think of ways to help. We just shake our heads and think ‘at least it isn’t us.’ We go sit in our comfy beds, read, and go to sleep knowing we won’t be blown up during the night.

There is nothing wrong with wanting your family to be safe. I want my mom and brother to always be happy, healthy, and well fed. But I am not thankful it’s those in the Middle East living in constant fear rather than us. I am not thankful that families are suffering daily while we enjoy singing crickets at night and chirping birds in the morning. I’m not thankful that, while I’m deciding between my Tommy Hilfiger wedges or my Michael Kors sneakers, their bare feet are covered in blisters.

But I mean hey, at least it’s them and not us, right?