For Better or Worse

I cried because I had no shoes until I met a man who had no feet.

I came across this Indian proverb while surfing the internet. This is something I truly understood last year. Everyone throws around proverbs left and right without meaning, this one is different. In talking to friends and family on a daily basis, it seems as though we all have something or another to complain about-- something is going wrong, someone did something wrong, things didn't happen the way we expected them to, etc.

One of the best lessons I have ever learned in my life is summed up by this Indian proverb. We often times look to other people's lives and envy certain aspects. In doing so, we tend to only see the people that are better off; however, there is always someone worse off. In the bigger scheme of life, most of our problems are so minor compared to others. When going through tough times and crying about our lack of shoes (which ironically, I happen to have plenty of pairs of), we should look to the one that has no feet. Learning to change our way of thinking can dramatically increase our optimism in life.

Now, whenever I go through a rough time, I make it a point to remember all the good I do have and how lucky I am to have the problems I have, rather than the problems that other people have. There's another saying which goes along those lines: Most people wouldn't trade their problems with others'. It's because deep down we know that our suffering might not be the worst thing in the world. Sometimes we just need a gentle reminder that there are people that would be lucky to have our problems and start feeling the same.