Another Needed Reminder to Be Grateful

I originally wrote this post on March 11, 2011, over 15 years ago. I was obviously wound up more than usual. Maybe it was the current political scene that affected me or the trials of owning a main street bikeshop. Or maybe it was just time for one the many re-adjustments forced on me or I forced on myself over the years in order to stay grounded. 

Of course, events that have unfolded since 2011 have become more intense and more grave than anything that happened in 2011. Those times are looking like the "Good Ole Days" now. When I found this post languishing in the "Back in the Day" files, I told myself I needed to come up with another bit of writing that would help me regain some perspective again. Writing has usually helped my state of mind, especially when my thoughts are scattered because I was upset.

But why think up a new twist when this old Twist still represents how I want to feel about my life and its relationship with the rest of the World. Re-reading it certainly smacked some perspective back into me that I did not appreciate was missing again.

Yeah, times are tough. Just how tough is better understood when we try to walk in another's shoes.

Moving along now. Here is the post from 2011.

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Life gets in the way of the things I want to do.  I try to convince myself that what I want to do is what Life should be focusing on.  But no.  Life has its own damn agenda and it more often than not, only includes me as so much excess baggage.  I get swept along by events unforeseen and not prepared for.  And suddenly the comfortable little rut I had constructed for myself has become a minefield.

I sidestep as many mines, pitfalls, and incidents that promise ugly outcomes as I can.  I cannot avoid them all...................................................... And then I notice that while I have become totally wrapped up in my own puny problems, elsewhere on the planet, folks are dealing with problems of the Life and Death kind. 

Suddenly I feel foolish.  Suddenly I realize that for all the little irritations I have to deal with, there are people right now whose home washed away and their family is missing, or they are on a desert road with their life's belongings on their back and hoping for food and water when they finally stop for the day. As bad as I would like to pretend my life gets from time to time, I am fairly sure a sizable portion of the planet's population would love to switch places with me.

Owing more money than is coming in is a laugher when held up and compared to say, being buried up to your neck and watching the village line up next to the rock pile.  Water in my basement seems a minor league distraction when watching a tsunami take out a town of 17,000.  Scowling and cussing under my breath when another ATV/Snowmobile screams by disturbing my peace seems so petty when somewhere over the desert of northern Africa, fighter jets are screaming by and strafing lines of people whose only crime is trying to get away.

Being a typical American human,  focusing on my problems first rather than anyone else's is predictable if not understandable.  Average dimwits such as myself tend to do this.  But then we really have to focus on what's in front of us.  It's all we have and for the most part all we can do.  We rise to occasions as needed and fall back to normality when the fires have been doused.  Dealing with the mundane is what keeps everything afloat.  Dealing with disaster is what we do to try and get everyone back on the boat so the focus can again be directed to the routine problems of keeping a society cohesive and moving in a good direction.

Anyway, just some early Tuesday morning thoughts after watching our latest calamities once again visit some fellow humans.  Sadness settles in with that second cup of coffee and I sit stunned.  My only consolation is my gratitude for the relatively peaceful existence I have been blessed with.  No matter how bad we think our lives are unfolding, there is always someone else carrying a burden we wouldn't wish on our worst enemy.

Keep it 'tween the ditches..............................................

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I thought I might try a tune that dovetailed nicely with the post. Then I scrolled into a song I had not heard for over 50 years; a song from an album I bought out of the back of the record truck at Clark's Tank and Tummy, Sanbornville New Hamshire in 1969. I liked the image on the cover. The record guy said it was a Blues band from across the big pond. 

I had already fallen in love with an early Fleetwood Mac album with Peter Green playing lead guitar. Blues was a new experience for me back then. I jumped on it. Sadly, all my early Fleetwood Mac albums and the ClimaxBlues Band album were among the stolen record collection I lost when someone broke into my room a week before I graduated from Charlotte Hall Military Academy in the Spring of 1970.

A two fer  today. First up, "So many Roads" from the "Climax Blues Band Plays On" album. Recorded and released in 1969.

Now a cover of a Robert Johnson classic, "Dust My Broom" by Fleewood Mac with Peter green playing lead guitar. It's odd how I had to discover the Blues through the music of wankers from across the pond. The original recording was released in 1968.