Stacie Orrico said it best when she sang, "There's gotta be more to life / Than chasing down every temporary high to satisfy me / Cause the more that I'm / Tripping out thinking there must be more to life. Well it's life, but I'm sure / There's gotta be more / Than wanting more." I think sometimes we tend to look for the greener grass because we can't see how green ours really is.
We as humans struggle in so many ways, and we make it known that we do. We struggle balancing work with the fun things we want time for. We struggle resisting that last slice of pizza (because it's a small one anyway, right?). We struggle keeping those 5 pounds off that we worked so hard to lose last month. We constantly find ourselves struggling with a majority of the things we are faced with throughout our daily lives. And we always let people know how much of a struggle those things are for us. Then, after listening to us babble on about our complaints, they hit us with all of their daily struggles. "You think that's bad? My mower ran out of gas right as I was finishing up the front yard!" It becomes almost a back and forth competition of who's had the most struggles throughout the week.
And with all of these crazy and super "life-threatening" struggles we are faced with on the daily, is there even room for anything else for to struggle with? Yeah, there is, and it's a struggle that the entire human population shares. The appreciation of life. Yes, as hard as it is to believe that your out of gas mower isn't the human population's biggest struggle, it's not. Forgetting to appreciate life and everything it has to offer is our biggest struggle. It's hard for us to see past our small problems and all of the ongoing complaints we are constantly surrounded by. But if we can look past those things for even a moment, we get a tiny glance at the big picture.
There will always be trials and tribulations that you're going to face, and as much as you think that you're the only one in the whole world who constantly gets crapped on by life, you're not. Some more than others, but all of us do. And for some reason, it's so hard for any of us to see that. Things go wrong for everyone, for the world, for the economy, for everything that exists. But that's life. And even though life gives us those struggles, it gives so much back in return.
It's as simple as looking up at the stars at night and realizing how amazing we truly do have it. Because when you really look at things, like really, really look at them, you get a sudden realization about how awesome it is that all of these things exist. We constantly daydream, and we think of all of the wonderful and beautiful things we wish we could do in life. But we have those dreams and wishes from things we've seen pictures of and heard stories about and cried over in movies. But they really exist. They're there for your taking. And even though life let your mower run out of gas on Tuesday, it also gives you the opportunity to see some of the most amazing places in the world the next day. But only if you actually take those opportunities and more importantly, take the time to appreciate them.
The human race is the whiniest, most complaining species in all of life. I'm actually not surprised we get stuck with all the struggles we do. It's like life is putting us in a small timeout because of how long we complained about the first timeout. We'd probably have fewer roadblocks to get around if we sat in the corner quietly for the two minutes we're supposed to and just learned from it. And then we take that lesson, how we felt in that moment, and be glad that it's over and realize that now there is an unending amount of new chances and adventures to look into.
It's our nature to complain about the bad and unfortunate things that happen to us in life. It's normal. But, it doesn't have to be. Do I think it would be easy peasy to go through life and never complain, being grateful for the times we stub our toes? Not even a little bit. However, I do think that even if we can't help our personal and everyday struggles, I think we can improve our overall human race struggle. Our struggle of not appreciating the life we've been so blessed to be put into. Our struggle of not taking the time to truly look in every direction and realizing that no matter whether it's right or left, or up or down, every way we look, there's going to be something amazing to be grateful for. But maybe if we all tried spending our lives doing that, instead of complaining about the greener grass somewhere else, we wouldn't even remember about our mower running out of gas because we would only want to spread our awe of life instead of our complaints.
We all struggle, as individuals and as a human race. You're going to gain that 5 pounds back every once in a while. Your mower is going to run out of gas when you only have one small strip of the front yard left. It's going to be too hot outside for your taste and sometimes it's going to be too cold. People are going to prosper more than you, even when they don't deserve it and people are going to die, even though it isn't fair. That's life's way of testing you. And if you can learn to have a genuine appreciation of life along with the course it takes you on and look past those small things, even when it seems super important, you pass.
We all have wonderful opportunities with wonderful places that those opportunities take us. We meet other wonderful people and share wonderful memories with them. We all get a wonderful life. Because this is a wonderful life. And it's definitely not just a practice one.
