Someone once told me to count my blessings. It may or may not have been my mother, and she may or may not have been chastising me for being an obnoxiously spoiled middle-class American girl. It's difficult for me to allow that my mother is, yes, always right. It is easier to accept that I always want everything and expect that I will always get it.
It is easy enough for me to ask: "Can I have (fill in blank of desired object/trip/activity), please? Because I work so hard (sometimes I don't get to nap!) in college and really, I'm a pretty good person." My parents always listen and always give me more than I deserve. I barely need to hint at an item of clothing I desire and I will find it in a package within the week. I can even text my mother about how cold-turkeying the Double Bubble is ruining my spirit, and she will buy up the whole dollar store's gum supply before the day is through.
And yet I still want. From that wanting comes lack of understanding. Why can't we go to the Caribbean for Christmas and fund my Spring Break trip and pay for summer abroad and lease out two apartments at the same time? My mother recently told me that, yes, I do have to get a job. Not just look, but actually secure a position. She also told me she doesn't care that "lifeguarding" is my only qualification - I will just have to smile bigger.
"But!" My only response to any limitation placed on my wanting is sheer astonishment. I grasp that money doesn't grow on trees, but I thought we had special plants in my yard, the kind of plants that would always ensure my happiness. Sure, I'll count my blessings, but the list better be pretty long. And I don't see why it shouldn't include the chance to celebrate Mardi Gras along with that bubble gum.
I don't want to become an ascetic monk, giving all my belongings away and realizing that happiness is "not in things; it is in us." That sounds kind of boring and pretty time-consuming. I just want to look around and be satisfied with not always being satisfied. With my situation, with my things, with my blessings.
Thanksgiving is around the corner, and I would hate to have to be thankful just for the green bean casserole, though it is amazingly generous to me. I hope I can look at my mother and father, the two hardest-working, selfless people I know, and tell them that I can be hardworking and selfless, too. That I can be content and happy even if I'm at home instead of New Orleans for Spring Break, and even if I have to wait until after college to travel across Europe.
Or I might just pass the turkey and say, "Thanks for my super cool pets." I might just remember how fun it is to ignore the paper due Thursday and go out Wednesday, to sleep in late during the weekends because I don't have to come in for a morning shift. I might just remember that I am in college and that my 19-year old self is incredibly lazy and stubborn and irresponsible. I'll remember all of this and forget my blessings, let alone the counting of them. In remembering, I'll forget that my minimal efforts don't deserve the world and that asking for it is not just silly, it's wrong.
So this holiday season. I propose no earth-shattering changes in our everyday behavior. Make a Christmas list. Make it as long as you like. Plant the seeds of trees that will always be sure to give you what your heart desires. Seek happiness instead of waiting for it to come to you. But do just one thing.
Remember. Remember without forgetting. Remember those people who sent you to college and still kept giving after their wallets were drained. Sometimes, I forget who those people really are. It is easy for us to thank the Peace Corps and the lawmakers and the police department. Those are great people doing great things, but don't throw all your thanks blindly to them. Look at the people close to you, who love you more than anything and who would do whatever it takes to make you happy. Normal people, doing normal things, things some of us can't even fathom. They count their blessings, even when there isn't a kegger waiting for them at the end of the week.
So tell them. Tell your family, your parents, your father who has had the same job for 30 years. Tell those real-life people who fund our fantasy lives that they matter, that they are more important than the things we are always asking them for. I will suppress all my buts and what-abouts for just one day. For just one day, I will be content, I will stop wanting. I may always want more, but I could never have more.
Mary Scott's column runs biweekly Wednesdays. She can be reached at ms.hardaway@cavalierdaily.com.
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