Perspective

Several years ago, before I had my first baby and came home to work, I worked at the family business. Our business is appliances, specifically high end appliances. You meet all kinds in this business, some people so wealthy they call in an order for $60,000 worth of appliances they will never cook on and others scraping together just enough to replace that worn out dryer.

To this day I remember a conversation my oldest brother had with a lady who's ice machine wasn't making ice. Note: an ice machine is a small, undercounter appliance that's only job is to make ice. It's a really nice thing to have in the house, but certainly a luxury. It's inconvenient when things you have spent a lot of money on aren't working properly and need to be repaired, but the way this lady carried on was really insightful. She ranted and raged and insisted it was an emergecy, a crisis, a drop-everything-and-get-here-now kind of moment. We are not in the repair business, so even if we dropped everything and ran over, there was nothing we could do. But it was the lady's insistance that this was the worst thing in the world that really got to my brother. He finally told her, "Ma'am, I can think of a lot of things worse than having your icemaker go out. Not having ice is not an emergency. A heart attack is an emergency, a miscarriage is a tragedy, a cancer diagnosis is a catastrophe."

Perspective.

I have gotten a big dose of it in the last 24 hours. I get bent out of shape and feeling sorry for myself because I am almost 8 months pregnant and having to endure the inconvenience of home repairs. Another family is mourning devastating news of an unborn baby with life-threatening conditions. Another family has a tiny two year old who has relapsed with leukemia after a bone marrow transplant, discouraging and disheartening news. Another family has a little boy who is facing brain surgery to improve blood flow to areas of his brain before damage occurs and to reduce the frightening possibililty of a stroke.

A flat tire, a bad day at work, a cold, a fender bender, tripping and falling in public, getting over charged for a car repair, or a fat tax bill from the IRS. All inconvenient and annoying, but not the worst thing that could happen.

Perspective.

For me, I am taking to heart the reminder that there is always someone who is worse off than you. There is always a family whose heart is breaking, a mother who will bury a baby, a father who can't fix the problem with his little son. And when you get to thinking that your life isn't going as planned, stop and look around you and you will find a little perspective.