There are some days, I have to admit, when the selfishness and greediness of others reeeeally gets to me. It confounds me. And instead of going on a rant about it, I decided to employ one of the final days of this 30-day challenge and spin my frustration in a more positive light. So….
Today, I am grateful for the power and gift of the struggle; for earning the hard “B,” for months of training to finish 4th in the race, for the hours of studying, for the years of doing without, for the times in college when all I could afford was to put $7.36 worth of gas in the car. I am grateful that as a child I wasn’t taught to measure happiness by posession, and that not getting everything I might have wanted helped me learn the value of patience and to value what I DID have. I am grateful that I didn’t grow up expecting that I was entitled to whatever I desired, and that my link to a concept of self-worth was not ultimately connected to materialism.
College might be the greatest biome in which to study a twenty-something’s ability to make-do with what’s available. For many, even affording college in the first place is a stretch, and can bring a steep financial burden; a privilege to be sure, but not necessarily an easy one. Low-cost and no-cost activities and food were as much survival skills as studying and test-prep were. We knew when the cheaper movie tickets were sold, or better yet, where the dollar theater was. Going to the gym on campus was a regular activity especially because its fees were automatically included in our tuition and therefore already paid for. Often times, deciding whether or not to attend some club meeting or job fair or information session was influenced by whether there’d be free food there too. Everybody knew that if you wanted people to show up to your club’s event, advertise free food! Not because we were destitute, but because it was a way to make what we did have last just that much longer. I saw friends splitting a pizza 5 ways, stocking up on crackers from restaurants because they were free, or subsisting on days and days in a row of generic cereal or bread and bologna. And there is, of course, the pièce de résistance, the ubiquitous go-to, sure-fire, never-fails, 21-for-a-dollar, college staple: ramen. It was hot, it was pretty good, and it was cheap. Cha-ching. There was even a group of “ramen gourmets” who would have ramen parties and experiement with mixing different flavors of ramen and had a whole strategy of ramen-tracking to find the best and cheapest kinds at near-by grocery and convenience stores. A bit extreme? Maybe. But there were definetely weirder groups or practices than that in college, and the ramen group had fun; but it’s a great example of how “the struggle” doesn’t necessarily mean “the suffering.”
The best part of “the struggle” is that it can be an experiential pathway to empathy. Even as most people move beyond the struggle, there are always going to be others who haven’t, who can’t, or never will. Having even anecdotal access to what this means or feels like can serve as the sometimes-necessary reminder that we have great opportunity to help those around us. The goal isn’t for one person to fix everyone’s problems, the goal is for each of us to do what we can, when we can. That can mean living a life traveling the world doing missionary work with the people and in the places most in need; it can mean volunteering at local shelters and human-service facilities; and yes, it can mean financial donation at your place of worship or to charities you know and like.
So, today I’m grateful for “the struggle.” I’m grateful for its lesson, and for its lasting impression.
From Left to Write 