Someone is wishing for the life you’re complaining about
Lately, I found myself complaining about everything. The coffee was too strong. My truck was too old. The room where I write was too hot. The list seemed endless.
One day, in the middle of what had become my daily “poor little me” routine, I stopped and looked around. I laughed at myself. Here I was, complaining about complaining.
To give you a little perspective about my life, I emigrated from a third-world country located thousands of miles south of here. I walked pretty much everywhere we went, until I bought a used bicycle for twenty pesos. I didn’t have that money so I had to work two whole days from open to close, the total of thirty-two hours. We lived in a two-bedroom house with my grandmother, my dad’s sister with her family of five, and my family of eight. We all shared one bathroom, and the water heater was a five-gallon bucket that hung over your head, plugged in the wall while you cleaned yourself up. The bedroom measured no more than a hundred square feet. My brother’s bed sat on top of mine, and I am sure my dad somehow bolted it to the wall to prevent it from collapsing on top of me while I slept. That same room also served as our living room, with a table with six chairs, so you can imagine that when everyone got ready to eat whatever my mother had figured out for breakfast, everyone had to be up and ready. Our temperature control system consisted in cracking open the window that led to the neighborhood’s public sidewalk, it gave us a view of the outside world but also gave everyone walking by, a front-row seat of our “private life.”
Today, I am fortunate to live in one of Bluffton’s beautiful communities. I have a great family of my own, two dogs and recently became a grandfather. We are all healthy, and enjoy some of the good things that life has to offer. So why, if all the things that really matter in my life were in a good place, did I find myself complaining? In that moment, I couldn’t really put a finger to it. I would love to tell you that a lightning struck and I had an answer right there, but that didn’t happen.
What did happen was that I took a pen and paper and started writing down all the things someone like me, back home in a little room would be praying about. Within a week, I had filled pages with things I complained about that someone else might be praying for. These are just a few. If the coffee was too strong, it meant I had plenty of it, along with hot water, and sugar, and the machine to brew it. My truck is too old, but that probably means I’ve been driving a classic and without even knowing it. That old truck is my reliable transportation to work; it takes my son to school every day and lets me visit my grandson now. The room where I write is too hot. However, this room is almost twice the size of my old living room and bedroom combined. In addition, it has its own separate bathroom all for myself, If I open the windows, I hear dozens of birds singing at all times of the day just for me.
The conclusion I reached after I wrote those pages is this: We become so busy building the life we want that we forget to enjoy the life we already have.
As I finish typing these words, I am still sitting in that hot room. A cup of strong coffee is beside me, and in a few minutes I’ll climb into my “classic” truck and head downtown. Funny how some of life’s complaints can start to look a lot like blessings.
Lucas Jofre moved to the Lowcountry from Argentina twenty-six years ago. When he is not spending time with his wife, two sons, and new grandbaby, he enjoys nature, running, and coming up with new stories on paper.
