The Country we Live in

            It’s human nature to focus on what we don’t have rather than what we do. I don’t hold that against people, because I’m certainly not innocent of the charge myself. The other day, I started thinking about how awesome that I live in America. True, we’re a bit gluttonous, we have a nosy foreign policy, and we go a bit overboard with our commitment to faith, but we have a lot of awesome things here that people should take some time to be grateful for.

            If I had a dime for every time I heard someone complain about LA tap water, I would have enough money to buy several bottles of Dasani. True, bottled water does seem to taste better (if you choose to ignore the whole “waste of money” thing), but people too often don’t appreciate what a privilege tap water actually is. Think about it. We have a virtually unlimited supply of water that is clean enough to drink and bathe in. Then think about countries where people bathe and drink out of the river that’s being polluted by the nearby factory. Or countries where people have to walk miles just to get a small amount of clean drinking water, much less bathing water. All we have to do is flip a switch and we run absolutely no risk of dying of dehydration. People tend to forget how incredibly fantastic that is.

            In America, we have access to almost any kind of food you can possibly imagine. We’ve received immigrants from all over the world, each one bringing a piece of the culture they left behind and making America’s culture more diverse, inclusive, and complete. One of the bonuses is that they brought their food with them. Then, they made it more efficient to cook, tailored it to the American pallet, and made it affordable. Grocery stores are practically overflowing with cheap food. We have so much food that we end up throwing it away in obscene quantities. Next time you’re eating something delicious, or even something repulsive, take some time to be thankful that it even exists.

            I could conduct an elaborate discussion of things like penicillin or liberal democracy, but I’ll talk about something even more near and dear to my heart: Cable television. When I consider with some shame the number of hours I’ve spent rotting in front of my television, I feel no shame in being thankful for the fact that I live in a country where I’m free to do so.  Think how many countries are forced to live every day of their lives without watching Game of Thrones. Certainly not a world I would want to live in. In fact, you shouldn’t either. If you haven’t seen Game of Thrones, go watch it. Now.

-JR