“The purpose of life, after all, is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experiences.” -Eleanor Roosevelt.
I love the quotes of Eleanor Roosevelt, but this one truly hits home today. I have been thinking about the things I have been blessed with. I haven't ever had to worry about where to sleep at night. Never have I had to feel what hunger feels like after a month of little to no food. Not one time have I had to wonder whether or not I would get sick from the water that keeps me alive.
I wake up in the morning only because an alarm clock rudely tells me it is time. In fact, often times I am quite rude right back to it. People in Albania wake up because they sleep lightly for a few hours every night, waiting for time to get up. They cannot rely on an alarm clock, because they cannot know if they will have electricity or not.
I drag myself out of a comfy queen size bed with pretty and slightly expensive and quite warm (thanks to my house's heater)sheets and comforter. Albanians wake up because they have had enough sleep for the night and it is time to work to make sure they have what they need for that day. Their bed, if they have one, is not queen size and definitely is not warm. They are lucky to have slept for the few hours they did even though they were so cold that their shivers occasionally woke them.
I walk to my bathroom and start running water for a HOT shower. If it doesn't get HOT enough for me, I am grumpy the entire day. Albanians wake up, and start to clean their house. They may have running water, but whether or not it is hot will be determined by whether or not the nation's leaders decide to keep the electricity on that day. If they live in a village they may not have running water, and some people do not have ANY water available within miles of their home. How would you like to wake up to that?
I throw on my work uniform and rush out the door with a bottle of water and a protein bar in my hand. Albanians put on some plastic flip flops (you know the kid that little kids wear here??) and if they are a lady they will start to make the day's lunch. This can be quite the task when all you have is beans and your husband demands a meal, but has no money to give you to provide it. If you are a man, you will most likely venture out to the nearest coffee shop to sit around with your buddies and talk. You would love to go to work and provide for your family, and you have even been offered many a good job, but you do not have the $5000 the owner of the company demands you give him before you can start this job. So, you drink coffee.
Are you getting this?
I drive my little Honda Civic to work, and gripe because I have to park it so far from the doors when it is cold outside, and possibly raining. Albanians who live outside the city travel for days on a poorly built wooden carriage being pulled not by horses, but by a single donkey. If it is cold, you deal with it. When it starts raining, you keep going. This is the only way you can get to the city to sell you small gathering of crops so that your baby might be able to have some milk this month, while you and your spouse scrape by on whatever rice is leftover from last month.
I spend 8 hours inside a temperature controlled building doing what could not ever be described as "hard labor" even though it frustrates the crap out of me sometimes. The men of Albania will take any job they can get. This includes going out to the forests during whatever season and helping to bring lumber in for little pay. They stay away from their families for months and even years at a time. But at least they know their kids can eat.
I come home at night to a kitchen FULL of food that I PICKED OUT, and I still complain because I "can't find anything to eat." The Albanians would think they had struck gold if they walked into my kitchen on what I considered to be a "slim week".
I sit at home on my laptop before bed, catching up with old friends that go all the way back to elementary school on Facebook, and I get mad if my internet lags in the slightest. Albanians lost friends, family, grandmas, grandpas, husbands, wives, siblings and children to years of war and half a century of communism. They are still looking for some of them to this day.
I am a little disgusted by myself today. I KNOW that I waste things every day. i don't mean to be a person who manipulates the feelings of others for the greater good of my cause. I just want to ask you, as you go about your week, to try and find ways to be more greatful for what you have. There are people all over the world that would trade places with you in an instant, no questions asked... even on your worst day. Lets strive to remember that the next time we want to complain about our house, or our car... or even our job.
Thanks for reading a piece of my heart today!
J
Bravo!
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