Taking it all for Granted...LIfe

Image via WikipediaThe other day I was watching divorce court.  The couple were fighting about money.  The man had lost his construction job and was working busing tables in a mall.  The woman who'd come from a nice family was not used to living poor as her husband was turning off the breakers at night to save on electricity and forcing his family to take cold showers.  He also had little money to buy food so all they did is eat beans and rice though a healthy meal, to eat it everyday would be nauseating.

The man would never buy food but simply eat what the customers left on their plates.  Despite all this he was paying his rent, paying his bills, and his kids had clothes on their back.  He was doing it the best he could.  Here was an example of a real man.  Not fake ones on TV but a real man with real life problems who was coping with them the best he could.  Doing his best and after all was said and done the wife said she was sorry for not realizing they were so destitute.

Seeing this man with his problems made my problems seem really small.  I mean sure I have bills, we all do but I eat fresh food, I have a pretty nice job, and I am not in as bad a situation as him.  He has shown me that perhaps I, and Us and We people get to soft and too comfortable and live charmed existence even if we don't live in Belair.  This mas was hustling.  He was hungry, he didn't make excuses for why things were not happening, or not getting done he just did what he could and did not complain.  It was fine.  He had a strong character and even stronger that because all that hardship had was going through he still sought honest work even if it was only cleaning up at a mall despite taht he was making a quarter of the salary he was working in construction. 
Its stories like these that wake me up and really shake me out of my numbness.  I have to ask am I doing all I can to fix and work on my problems.  I would say no.  I think I get complacent at times and lose focus of my priorities.  It is easy when I have comforts to come home to but this man had none of that.  Every thing tv, food, electricity had a cost and he didn't have the money to spend on the little things that we take for granted.