What Matters

I have it pretty good.

I know I complain to some of my friends about my life here in Castlegar sometimes. It's not perfect by any stretch. One thing you really take for granted when moving from where you grew up to brand new places is how much went in to building the kind of connections and friendships you had. I didn't make friends with people like my closest friends in Ottawa overnight. I mean we're talking well over 10 years of getting to know someone and going through life with those people. You can hardly expect that kind of thing to really start happening somewhere new in 10 months. Let alone with the schedule I work.

That being said, things happened over the last day or so that none of you know about or will know about to a friend of mine that made me realize how good I've got it. There was a time in my life I faced my own self made holes and dealt with some real personal challenged in my own mind. I've mostly got through those challenges and gone on to find some success in my career. I'm no where near where I want to be yet, my goals are much bigger in life and in career. That being said, I'm really proud of the strides I've made since being lost and directionless at 21-22 years old.

Why did that happen for me? My family, my friends, my social network of strength and support that existed then and still exists now if even at a distance. I made the changes and had the help I needed to find some if not all of the peace I needed to make a better life for myself.

Some other people aren't so lucky and have to face all those battles themselves. We often get dealt unfair hands. Nobody chooses to face an illness or to be sick or to have obstacle after obstacle thrown in front of them. Lets face it, some people have to deal with a lot more than others do. For someone to have to face those things and face it without the kind of support that many of us are lucky to have... that's pain, that's a real challenge, that's real hardship.

I don't deserve to bitch and moan. I have the world's comfiest safety net thanks to the people I'm blessed to know. Instead, I should be looking out for people like my friend who need the same kind of hand up that I got.

Count your blessings in this new year. Maybe there are more of them than you thought. Sometimes it's easy to forget how good you have it.