What can you live without?

Saw this thing on TV ‘What can you live without?’ asking the good ol’ American public to make a sacrifice to show themselves what it is they truly need in life. The pledge is that they will go one whole day without spending money (cue dramatic gasps from the audience) a whole week without using your credit card (more gasps and exchanged looks) and do not eat out at a restaurant for one whole month!! (gasps now turning to cries of anguish and outrage that such a thing should be asked of them).

Two months ago… maybe even one month ago. I would have been angry. Today, I felt bad for them.. so bad I wept for them. To believe that any one of these things was a sacrifice was ludicrous to me. A month or two ago my fury would have ignited to rage. How dare they think they know what it is like, how dare they think they are proving anything or even getting a clue. A day without spending? Give me a break.. try a month of it! People who ‘spend too much’ are being investigated on TV. I am watching them throw away over $400 of groceries. Things they bought and didn’t need and simply tossed aside when they expired.

None of those things passed my mind this time, other than the brief recognition of my indignation in weeks past. I believed that the world was split into people that can afford to live and people that struggle every day. Sure… bills are hard to meet but there is food in our bellies and clothes on our backs, computers to play on and so forth. We’re lucky. I am lucky. There are people all over the world with no food at all, no clothing no nothing.

It’s not even about that anymore, not knowing how ‘lucky’ they are was not my sorrow this time around. “What can you live without” What saddened me is that they realized that they could live for a month without going out to dinner… I have realized I could live without anything; except family, friends, food and water. And live happily. Not one other thing actually ‘matters’. Not one.

I appreciate every morsel of food that passes my lips, I enjoy every second of TV that I watch and I laugh out loud or cry as I flick through the pages of my book. Every smile I receive is cash in the hand and for every hug… I’d give my life in exchange. What is sad for them; is that a diamond ring would give them less pleasure than a smile brings to me.

I’m not talking about money, it’s value or that it can’t buy happiness or any other cliché. I’m taking about my cousin with kidney issues that is not allowed to drink more than half a liter a day, and how every drop is liquid gold to him. I’m talking about children that cry themselves to sleep every night whilst other children throw tantrums and refuse affections to prove their point. I’m talking about vegetables rotting in trash cans as people starve on the streets. I’m talking about people loosing loved ones and screaming with grief whilst others grieve over a loss of ‘going out to dinner’. And what is terrible is that these people making these ‘sacrifices’ truly believe that they have learned from the experience.

We all say “Money can’t buy happiness” “Don’t take things for granted” “Don’t sweat the small stuff” “Be grateful for what you have” “There is always someone worse off than you” How many of us truly do, or truly understand those statements? Why as a society do we put so much focus on the things that we don’t have, rather than the joys and wonders that we do?

I will never take a single drop of water, morsel of food, friendly smile, comforting hug, the holding of hands, a single television show, the light turning on when I flick the switch or many, many other things for granted in my life. I will appreciate every breath in my body and every breath in every body of those I know and love. Every day I will pray that I NEVER develop a deeper understanding than the one I have; though at the same time, I wish more could know it.

Despite all that, my dog is whining and I yelled at her. Why? I wonder how much I will miss that irritation when she passes.