For a happy life, want what you have

I love my hands. Sometimes I become fixated while washing them, meticulously lathering each finger with soap before rinsing, holding them in front of me to admire the lines, birth marks, and tattoo that make them my own.  It's not so much that they are anything remarkable so much as the fact that they are mine... and that I have them. That's when I start considering those in the world living without use of their hands, or without them at all. I recently watched one of those personal short documentaries on CNN.com where a woman showed how she functioned without use of her arms. She did everything with her feet, down to changing her baby's diaper. I was both amazed and inspired, however ashamed that I take something seemingly so given in life for granted. Hands are not a given; just as a job isn't to the unemployed or a mother to someone who recently lost their own. The majority of our fortunes are not our own because of some grand accomplishment or testament of character. They are no indication of personal merit and we are not entitled to them. Most of them found us by chance, just as our misfortunes did and will continue to do. Believing this helps me better understand just how blessed I am - not deserving, but blessed. And in these times, when it is far easier to focus on and long for what we believe we don't have, it becomes all the more crucial to learn to be joyous and amazed by what we do.