Free write
I am thankful for...: By Emily N. Truong
*Disclaimer: These are some of my random thoughts, therefore, I have not proofread nor do I find the need to. I am just glad it out of my head.
I am thankful for…
As the year approaching to an end I am experiencing something I never experiencing before. This year, I feel especially thankful than any other time in the past twenty some plus years of my life.
This past Thanksgiving, a friend of mine asked me what I am thankful for. The thought has never occurred in my mind until I am being asked. He then went into a spill of being thankful mumbo jumbo. To be honest, I was half tuned out when he went on with his “lecture”. However, once at home that night, I thought hard about what he said. This is what my friend told me about the spirit of giving thanks. The spirit of being thankful is to be thankful for what you have and to those around you for being in your life.
I know it is very hard to get into the mushy feeling and being grateful mood when everything around you is in a limbo. The economic is in crisis, jobs are being lost everywhere, hunger rampage at each corner of the world and in your neighborhoods, each day more and more people are being forced to live on the streets. Nevertheless, I felt it was no excused for me to not be thankful for what I have in life. My friend also pointed out a very good point. He asked me, when I go to temple each week what do I pray or ask for? I answered him “I ask for health, comfort, and job stability.” He said “Why not thanks the Bodhisattva for the things that you already have in your life, instead of asking for more things?” Why can you say “Thank you for giving me health, a job to go to, family who love me, and friends that I can count on.” As much as I hated to admit, I have to agree with him. Thus, here is my list of things I am thankful for.
First of all I am thankful for having a fantastic set of parents. Although, my mom always complaining about why I am still single. Not to mention they can be so annoying sometimes. Sometimes, I have to play the role of “the parents”. However, without my parents I would not be here in this world to write this tedious random thought that I have. Without them my existent will not be possible. For that I am thankful for loving parents, for having someone that loves me unconditionally. I am thankful that I still have the full set of parents. Comparing to those that only have one parent or none, I am truly blessed. I am even more blessed that both of my parents are in good health and I am thankful for that.
I am thankful to have ton of friends. Although, sometime some of them annoyed the heck out of me, but then again, I annoyed them first. Thus, we are all even. I am thankful for having friends that never cease to be there when I needed someone to bug when I am bored out of my mind. I am thankful to have friends that willing to cook and let me be the taste tester. I am thankful for friends that allow me to roam their closets for clothes, this explain why I am the only one that have the smallest closet in my house. This reminded me a funny story. I was at work one day and a co-worker complimented on my outfit for that day. I told her “I will tell my friends that you like their clothes.” My co-worker stared at me with a confused look on her. I explained “Oh this bebe cashmere sweater is belongs to my friend, this pair of pant is belonging to my other friend, my shoes belong to my mom.” My co-worker asked “So what on your body that belongs to you?” I answered “Oh, the undergarments I am wearing are mine.” Another thing that I am thankful for was free lunches. At my former place of employment, every day there ought to have one or two people always bring extra lunches for me. Either they are being supper nice or they trying to fatten me up. I offered to bring my own lunches, but they all said “I always cook more than I can eat, so I thought I bring it in for you.” Now that I am working at this new place, I have no one bringing lunches for me. However, some of my friends/former co-workers did occasionally e-mailing and calling asking me out to lunch. Thus, I have nothing to complaining about in this category.
I am thankful for having a job to go to every morning. However, some mornings I just want to sleep in, especially Monday morning. Never the less I am thankful for having a job, no matter how stressful the job is. Actually, I am thankful to have two jobs; one main one and one is moonlighter as a tutor. If you ever try to tutor seven kids after an eight hours work day you will know how exhausting and mind draining it can be by the end of the night. Still, I am thankful to have jobs.
In my main job, I get to see the impact of our economic crisis in full swing. My office’s phone lines are ringing endlessly; our lobby is filled with its full capacity. This is why this year is especially touching to me. Not that I am happy to see that people are being in this kind of situations, but it make me realized how fortunate and at the same time how selfish I am. The situation also triggered me to think about what I have done in the past like; complaining and comparing how suck my life is. Never tell people in my life how much I appreciated them. Complaining about how I never have enough money to go on vacation to places where I want to go. I just focused on myself. How I don’t have this or that. Although, through out the year I do volunteer and do as much I can to contribute into my local neighborhoods. Still, all of these self reflections made me ashamed of myself for being such a selfish individual. It also made me realized how my perception about the world can be so narrow and ignorance. I try to repent as much as I can, but I guess I never give it a one hundred percent effort. So, here I am a novice in this repenting business, I will take one thing at a time. I guess all those repenting chanting each week at the temple really make a different.
Each day sitting across from people that their next meal is might not exist. Where they are going to sleep under some bridges or their cars, or that their illness will get worse as the winter getting into its full blown. There are mothers and children go days without food or a dry place to sleep. Parents are struggling with finding a job so their kids can have something in their growling tummies.
Reading an article in CNN a week ago about how a mother that live in Haiti have to choose which kid get to eat and which kid is going to starve. I never been a mother, but I can only imagine how hard this decision is. There are one in five children die of starvation every five seconds. There are 923 billions people are starving right now in this world. This made me thankful for each spoon of rice I eat. To appreciate those that work hard to bring that grain of rice to my bowl.
I am thankful for being fortunate enough to be in a place where I can afford to buy food and have food to eat. I am grateful for not having to make choices like the mother in that country. I am grateful and feel bless that the thought of being starved is never even occur in my mind. I might not be dining on steak or lobster or any delicacies, as a matter of fact I have been eating ramen noodle for lunch for the past few days. I thought those ramen noodle days had passed since college, but I guess I was wrong. On the bright side at least I am not starving, and for that I am truly grateful.
Each day I tell myself this “People that come into my office, they don’t have the luxury of having food to eat plentiful like I am.” To realize that they just being caught in a place where they have to make choices like to eat or sleeping out in the street during the winter. To make such choice as: to have pride and be starving to death or to eat and let others look down upon you and make judgment that you are too lazy to work that why you have to ask for public assistant.
When I see those that come into my office, I try to think of it in this way. These people do want to work, but they are one of the million that are currently being laid off from work. The last time I checked on the Bureau of Labor, the number of people that is currently unemployed is 10.1 millions. Why do I know people want to work instead of fest on public assistant? We work closely with other departments, which included employment office. I know that food stamp program required you to enroll into the job training or job search program and you have to show that you are actively looking. But how many people that do not work in the program know about this? I sure bet not many.
Instead of looking at “Oh great these lazy people are here to fest on tax payers monies. I am looking at it from the perspective of “what if that person is one of my family member, friends or someone that close to me or I know personally. Worse yet, what if I become one of those people some day?” I mean, no one can guarantee that our lives will be one smooth ride. Like anyone in this world, we are just as likely prone to poverty, starvation, and being in a bad situation as anyone else. You might think I am being too naïve. True, I am admitting that there are people that take advantage of the system, but do we let our fear of this preventing us from helping others that are in need? I don’t know about you, but maybe being a Buddhist has taught me to be compassion toward others. Don’t get me wrong, I am not accusing you of not being compassion or anything, nor am I trying to be goodie two shoes or I am any closer to being compassion as you are. I have a long way to be considered as being compassion. I like to think of it as “You reap what you planted.”
In my own personal opinion, I believe in help others in their time of need and never request a repay or questioning whether or not that person really needed the help. I am a believer in karma, whatever you planted or planting is what you will get back as the fruit of the seeds that you planted. That is all I got out from going to temple every week. I know it is bad of me. But all those chanting sometime made me too relax and when I am relaxed I tend to doze off.
Anyway, sorry for digressing a little bit. As I was saying, my heart feel tight like someone has squeeze all the air out when I see someone pass on judgment of someone else when they ask for public assistant. I told myself long ago that don’t judge someone when you don’t even know their situation. To point a finger at someone when you judge them is like pointing three fingers back toward yourself.
Before working in the non-profit and social service environment I always thought those that reach out for public assistants are people that are too lazy to go to work. I remember one time while in high school we were learning about the government system, someone brought up the subject of public cash assistant. As later on I learned that they meant the TANF program. Anyway, someone in my class said that we have too many illegal immigrants in our country and they do nothing except getting pregnant and have a lot of kids so they can get public assistant. These “lazy people” are sucking up our social service resources that are being paid by the tax payers. I admitted, at that time I agreed with that way of thinking, because at the time it made sense. However, as I grew up I learned that our society is more complex than it appears to be. There is no such thing as black and white; however, there are ton of gray areas.
Maybe because I get to grew up most of my life in a land of the “melting pot” I get to see variety of ethnics and cultures in one place. I believe that if I was to grow up in a place where only one ethnic group or culture, I will definitely have a different perspective on things than I am having now. Thus, I am a huge believer in respecting other people opinions, perspectives, and lifestyles.
I am grateful and thankful for having a chance to live in a country where I can have the chance to make my dreams or obtain any goals I want to as long as my dreams and goals do not interfere with other people freedoms. I am grateful to have the opportunity to go to school and learn. I am thankful to have the opportunity to explore any subject my heart content.
Another fortunate thing happened in my life is that I got to work in a multi-culture and ethnics company prior coming to my currently employment. At my former employment we have staff that speak more than 70 different languages and come from more than 100 countries. I don’t think you can get any more diverse than that. Being in that environment has enhanced my understanding of other cultures and widened my perspective tremendously. This is why I can understand why some people will not use birth control pills or any contraceptive method. There are many factors and reasons; culture, religious, believes, and etc. I am blessed to have this experience. I am feeling fortunate to be living in the United States of America.
This made me realize how lucky I am to be where I am right now, to be with those I am with, and do what I am doing. Whenever I ever feel like complaining about daily things that are happening in my life, I make my self take a moment out to calm down and re-think things through. Before complaining about anything I will make myself go through a list of things I have and compare to those that are not as fortunate as I am. Things that are on the list are: My parents, health, a job, food, shelter, and warm clothes. If I still have all of these, I have no reason to complain about anything.
Another thing I am thankful for is my health. I never know how precise my health is until I work in the disable and seniors services department. Day in and day out I get to see that people are in pain constantly and their health is failing day by day. This made me appreciated for my health.
In conclusion, I start to shift my perspective and way of thinking. Instead of asking for blessings, I am starting to count my blessings. Instead for asking for more, I start to appreciate what I have.
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