Very few people in this country or in any developed nation realize that they have so many things in their life, which they take it for granted, and some time as their birthright, but they don’t consider these things to be blessings. So instead of counting their blessings they become upset if something happens that is not to their liking, or disturbs their daily activities, or causes some loss of luxuries, or some kind of pain, physical/emotional or both. They do not thank their creator for giving them so much, but complain about his failing to give or taking it away something. They remember their tragedies more than their happy days. In other words they count their tears more than their blessings. In this story I will try to show you how many people in many countries would gladly give up anything to get what we—you, my friend—citizens of this free country, now have but don’t even think about, and take for granted.
We now have a new Aquarium in Atlanta, Georgia, and this uses five million gallons of water. We read the figure, and did not give a second thought, because we do not consider it as extraordinary or something unique, or impossible. We use water for drinking, shower as many times a day as we want, use it for watering the lawn, washing our car and for many other purposes. We have to pay for it, of course but the cost is not much; a couple of dollars a day. Big deal, we say. Using a number of gallons of water daily is a part of our life. Even if we are a penny pincher or miser, we don’t even talk or think much about it, until we get the next bill in the mail. We may make some small effort to conserve its use, but will not bother to really implement an effective water conservation program in our home.
But do you have any idea how precious water is for over three thousand million people living in the rural areas of developing countries. Only one person in five have access to clean water. More than half billion of the children fewer than 15 years old do not have clean water. In the developing countries, one hospital patient in four suffers from an illness caused by polluted water. Daily, millions of women and children have the chore of fetching water, taking up to half a day and using energy which would have been better spent on education, training, or simple survival. Even then, the water may not be clean, and contaminated water means sickness and death.
Despite serious efforts by a number of world NGO’s and government the situation is not improving as much as it should. The growth and rapid urbanization, together with the low level of public awareness about health, has drastically reduced many countries’ abilities to keep up with need; and today, there are still almost 1.1 billion people who have inadequate access to water and 2.4 billion without appropriate sanitation.
This is only one aspect of life. Don’t you think that getting clean drinking water and in quantity that we need and at insignificant cost, is one of the blessings that we should be really thankful to our government and then to our creator. We don’t take it as a blessing, because we think it is our right. Go and live in an under developed country of Africa, or Asia, where clean water is a luxury, that many can’t even think about or afford it, because it is simply not there. You cannot survive a day without complaining or becoming sick. You will only ask yourself “How can they survive without clean water, or what they did to deserve it?”
So my advice to you is that count your blessings, not your tears. Every breath you take, every food you eat, every day you wake up to begin a new day, and whatever you do, you should be thankful to God, and count the blessings, you will be glad that he has given you so much, without your asking for it, without expecting any return from you, you will be more content and happy. We can never thank our creator for the blessings that we enjoy every day, every moment. Don’t count the pain that you had last night, or an year ago, the loss that you suffered, the accident that you had, and the tears that had in your eyes for each sad or painful event, because it will make you sad, depressed and frustrated again, and then you will not be able to enjoy what you have.
Note: This column was published in Dahlonega Nugget, Dahlonega, Georgia, USA as an Opinion Column as a Guest Columnist on February, 2006.
Rambler's Corner 