Grateful is NOT Relative!

A couple years ago my family and I visited the Utah Museum Of Natural History at the University of Utah. It was a great Saturday and we had a lot of fun. But one of the things I remember most was the temporary exhibit they were hosting about the brain. Our human brain is an amazing device, very powerful and capable of rational thought, but I believe that it sometimes gets in the way of good thinking.

The particular exhibit I remember most is not the actual human brain, but rather the basketball shooting display with special glasses. The special glasses had light pipes about an 1½ inch in diameter which were cut at an angle on the end. They made it appear that anything you were looking at was at about a 35° angle to the left of where it was when you look at it without the glasses. So what you did at this participatory exhibit was shoot the basketball into the hoop while wearing glasses. My first few shots missed far to the right, but as I kept shooting I became more and more accurate even though I still felt as though I was shooting straight. Then I took the glasses off and my shots missed far to the left until my brain subconsciously and automatically corrected with each shot until my accuracy was back to normal (which isn't really that great).

It's interesting how our brains automatically adjust to changing conditions. I think that's one of the things that makes a special as humans. We are so adaptable. But they also leads to some less than desirable feelings as well.

Here's an example. When Mechelle and I've were first married I did not make very much money. As time went on and my experienced increased so did my compensation. But since our target moved our spending increased just as quickly. Now I make a lot more money than I did when we were married 13 years ago and are spending has managed to keep pace and so we are spending a lot more than we did when we first got married. So we still feel as though we don't have very much money.

Another factor that may contribute is that we moved into a nice neighborhood. The average house the around here is probably 4000 square feet and many people have boats, trailers, and four wheelers. They drive nice vehicles. They have granite countertops and richly decorated interiors, and finished basements with home theaters. Comparatively, we don't seem to have a lot of money. We spend a lot of time thinking, I wish I could just take a big vacation. Or, I wish I had a nice new truck, I wish our house was fully decorated, I wish we had a home theater in our finished basement. I wish we had a four wheeler or several four wheelers, and a nice big toy hauler trailer to go with them. And definitely a big aft cabin boat that could still pull skiers easily out of the water with its huge engines.

While all those things are very nice, wishing in grasping for them is a huge mistake. Looking through these deceptive glasses, only leads to feelings of want and entitlement.

I find that being thankful helps to counteract these bad feelings. Expressing gratitude is a useful method to help me take off the deceptive glasses that make me shoot crooked. So please join me in expressing a little gratitude.

On this stormy night I'm grateful to have a nice warm house to live in. I'm grateful for my family and our good health. I'm grateful for my extended family both on my side and on Mechelle's side. I'm grateful for friends and neighbors and coworkers who are a joy to be around. And grateful for my new job as gives me more time to do things like write this blog post. I'm grateful for computers, they are so much fun. I'm grateful for telephones and cell phones because of the safety and convenience they allow. I'm grateful for good medicine and doctors. I'm grateful for good books. I'm grateful for my knowledge of the gospel and faith that one day I will live again after leaving this earth.Ahhh, I feel good.

If you still don't feel good, consider this, if you are reading this blog, you are probably much more wealthy than 90% of the world's population because you have a computer and access to the Internet. I bet you even have a toilet in your home. According to The Global Water Supply and Sanitation Assessment 2000 by the World Health Organization, 40% of the global population does not have access to excreta disposal facilities (also known as "toilets"), mostly in Asia and Africa.

P.S. If you'd like to help with the dissemination of toilets, please visit WorldToilet.org today.