Why I feel so lucky

Posted on August 22, 2014 | By Lawrence White

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A Saratoga county road photographed 8-22-14 @ 5:30PM
©Lawrence White

Our lives are constantly being bombarded with negative stimuli. Dark news. Ugly information. Due to this we often forget how fortunate, how blessed, we actually are. It seems that it is easier to complain about that which sucks than focus on that which works for us. Therefore I am taking the time to do that right now.

I feel lucky because I can drive on safe country roads through glorious groves of trees and open fields of corn. I feel lucky because the air is warm and comfortable and the winds are low and days are long. I feel lucky to have love in my live with a partner who stuck with me through the hardest of hard times. I feel lucky to have friends who have done the same. I feel lucky because my house lights work, my pump works and my landlady is an angel. I feel lucky because I know that if dial 9-11 someone will answer. I feel lucky because the publisher of the Times Union sees fit to give me this space to tell you how lucky I feel today or tell you how I feel about politics or culture the next. I feel lucky that the beautiful magazine Saratoga Living prints my photos and that I have wonderful clients who collect them. I feel lucky because my phone works and the refrigeration has a full chilled bottle of seltzer waiting for me on the side shelf. I feel lucky because I am not hungry but when I get hungry there is food to eat. I feel lucky to know that my neighbors are comfortable and safe in our neighborhood. I feel lucky that we live in a country and in a time that allows us the freedoms to speak out on the issues and the right to vote and petition our government to back up our words. I feel lucky to not be wracked with depression or locked into fear.

Certainly there are many things to drive us towards fear and towards anger. I have personal issues that could distract me to the point of despair. We all see and hear of atrocities, horrible injustices and vile acts of grotesque inhumanity daily. There are certainly people who love to bring us down and relish the opportunity to see us fall. However we help them defeat us if we do not stop long enough to simply look around and realize how lucky we are and what it is that we are lucky about. Without that perspective we live without vision or understanding. If we can not find (or refuse to look for) the “up-stairs” we will proceed downward. We can become so deeply locked into our own problems that we forget about basic things that happen everyday all around us that are totally miraculous.

For instance I went out on my back deck just now and deeply inhaled the cool evening air. When I exhaled I did so knowing just how lucky I am to have experienced this wonderful evening. An evening without pain. There will be another for us all tomorrow, God willing, if we are lucky.

Categories: General