Guilty or Grateful?
Sometimes when I watch my two amazing daughters playing happily by themselves or with one another I get literally choked up with feelings of awe and gratitude. I am awed by their beauty and the joy they bring to the world simply by being part of it. I am grateful for the house they play in, for the healthy food I am able to feed them (they are grateful for the junk food which they definitely also get). I am grateful for their warm coats, our amazing pediatrician, our close knit extended family – the list is endless. These blessings rattle through my mind and overwhelm me.
But then something transforms that gratitude, that awareness of my blessings, into guilt. Guilt that I have what others do not. Guilt that I do not worry about where our next meal will come from when some mothers do. Guilt that I can spend time with my children when many have to work long hours that make this impossible. Guilt that our house is big, at least compared to many. Guilt that our cars run and our well never fails to produce clean water.
More disturbing than the rush of guilt that crushes my warm fuzzy sense of gratitude is that I had previously felt there were only two things I could do with those feelings. First, I could push them away with “I deserves”. Instead of feeling bad for having what others do not I could tell myself I deserve them because I have worked hard my whole life. I had my first job when I was fourteen (unless you count babysitting which started at age 11) and never looked back. I went to school for seven years post-highschool to achieve my dream of becoming a lawyer. A dream we are still paying for! I don’t’ have extravagant tastes and most of what I want is for my girls anyway. I can tell myself that I deserve what I have and so I need to ignore any guilt and dismiss it as a counterproductive emotion that robs me of my hard-earned joy. This reaction is just about as satisfying and productive as it sounds like it would be.
The other option is to wallow. Wallowing goes something like this - It’s true I have so much more than many people here in the US and most especially around the world. Starting with my freedom and going right down the line to a closet full of clothes I never wear. Why me? I am no better than those who suffer the cold of winter without a coat, the oppression of a dictator or the sorrow of losing a child to preventable disease. So instead of reasoning with my guilt I let it in and feel that somehow if I let it steal at least some of the joy I find in my own blessings I am somehow better off because at least I am acknowledging the disparity and isn’t that more than most people do??
Neither of these reactions really help me or the world around me. What I have learned is that the “right” reaction is the harder third choice. I don’t need to ignore or wallow in my guilt. I can try, try again and try some more to find a balance in my life. A balance between awareness of the great things in my life and awareness of the need around me. In this case I believe the balance is struck with a mindset and intentional behavior changes. The mindset - I believe that I am blessed. That although my husband and I work hard that this is not the only reason we prosper. We have been blessed. That’s where the struggle is – why us and not others? There are people who work just as hard but through different geographic, political, familial or biological circumstances do not have what we have. I don’t know why, but I do know that we are blessed not for ourselves but that we might be a blessing to others. This is where the mindset meets the behavior – I believe I am blessed to be a blessing. That along with the advantages of my life comes responsibility.
That is what has prompted me to start blogging again. I have started to ask some questions of myself and mean to try and work out the answers of how and where I can act to make a difference here as a way of holding myself accountable in the asking and to share whatever it is I may find. The first question I think I am going to tackle (and this one could take a year to work through) is what impact do I have on the world as a consumer? This spans everything from am I buying the products of slave labor to what is the environmental impact of my purchases? There are probably hundreds of questions I could ask and I have a few ideas to start, but am open to new ones as well.
My first project is inspired by the book A Year of Biblical Womanhood by Rachel Held Evans (this book is Phenomenal!). In it the author brought up the issue of slave labor in the cocoa market. I LOVE chocolate and was mortified to discover that my habit might be enabling the evil institution of slavery in northern Africa. I determined to discover what chocolate might be safe and found that even with the help of my research assistants Google and Bing this information is not so easy to find. So I will be researching and questioning and looking and reporting what I find.
And I’m off . . .
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