Dear God ....

Thank you for everything .
I was having a conversation with one of my friends a few weeks ago and he made an observation that I always had remarkably good things happen to me .
I brushed it off saying that that was just my way of looking at my life with rose tinted glasses . But it was food for thought .
And a good nights sleep later , I have to say that it is very true .

Everday I am so busy trying to make a better life , a better living ..struggling
with the mundane everyday challenges , wanting to be a better person with better judgement , better career prospects ..better love interests:) ..that I've never paused and said thanks for what I do have ..right this moment .

So I was upset that I didnt get chosen to play the lead part in our 5th grade
teachers day play ..and I took it pretty personally when I didnt stand 1st in class all those years ..and that I never had a dog while growing up . It was a huge life changing experience not making it to the merit list in the 10th and the 12th grade when I so wanted to . And not having the guy I like so much like me back in college . Then getting a D grade during my masters and not having a job for close to 8 months . And I was upset when I had to work as a cashier and a front desk receptionist , library assistant xeroxing papers for my boss when I thought he was so stupid.And then everyday ..at missing the green light driving to work , spilling coffee over my papers ..missing deadlines ..and elevators that make me wait and putting on weight , having bad hair days ,being lonely during christmas and cynical on valentines day .and every other silly mundane thing that has upset and irritated me in a small and not so small way .

I know that I am guilty of worrying too much ...and making too many plans and leaving very little to the moment . Sometime I'm harassed by alternatives and consequences of my own actions and inactions ...and more often than not , I wake up feelingfar less thankful than I should be .

Then A few weekends ago I had a chance encounter with a little boy .

I was at a traffic light in a cab and this young street boy - all of 7 years maybe
was selling newspapers . He threw a newspaper into the cab .I threw it back out . This repeated 3 times . Finally I got upset and rolled the window up.

He looked at me straight in the eye , this defiant look coming over his face.
Like he was staring life in the eye . Then page by page - he tore the newspaper
looking at me ...one page at a time . Followed it up by tearing another newspaper and then a third one after that .
All this time , he continued to look at me angry and upset .

The light turned green and we drove away . I watched his sillouhette grow smaller and smaller in the fading daylight . But I knew I was taking him with me .
I've thought of him on so many occasions since then ..
Why is it that I had to look at him and the helplessness of the scene to appreciate
things that I so took for granted all my life . ..that I've worried about so many things in the past 27 years but not knowing where the next meal was coming from just hasnt been one of them .
Why is it that someone has to die so that the rest of us learn to value life more ?

That I learnt more about my life from looking into the deep brown eyes of a dirt streaked kid than looking into my own . I look at myself in the mirror some mornings and I see him staring back at me .
I wonder where he will be ..5 weeks from now ..5 years from now ..next life maybe ?
..and then I wonder what he went home and told his friends that evening .
That in my own way I had been just as mediocre as hand that life had dealt him and that he would look at me , put me away and surive me .