When I was a teenager and complained about something — the food, the weather, being bored — my mother (like many other parents, I suspect) had a response at the ready: “You should be thankful!” she would say — “there are…” and then she would fill in whatever was required — people starving in Africa, people with muscular dystrophy or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, people who couldn’t see or hear or walk, people in prison, etc. Of course, none of this made me feel any better, because I was a callow youth and arrogant enough to think that I deserved whatever I thought I was in need of (better food, more interesting surroundings, etc.) “I’m not going to suddenly feel better because someone I don’t know is worse off!” I remember yelling.
Now that I am older and wiser (definitely the first, and theoretically the latter) I have discovered a better way to feel gratitude for what I have, and that is to periodically lose it and then get it back. The first thing that made me come to this realization was when I got nasal polyps (benign) a few years ago, and as a result gradually lost the ability to breathe through my nose almost entirely. Have you ever thought about breathing through your nose? Probably not. It’s just something you do, you don’t think about it. By the way, did you know that most people only breathe through one nostril at a time, and it alternates automatically without you noticing? I didn’t either, until recently.
