Monday, May 17, 2010

It's amazing what all works in our society

Every day we are bombarded by the media with bad news, but have you ever stopped to think about everything that's working as it should, at least most of the time?

If it's cold outside, we can turn on the heat in our home or car just at the touch of a button. When we need water, we just turn a tap and it's there -- we can even choose if we prefer hot, warm or cold. Electricity to power all of our appliances comes to our homes, as do signals carrying telephone and/or Internet services. We can even access those almost anywhere we want. I am not even mentioning television or radio broadcasting signals - well, actually I am :-)

When we need to get from A to B, we can take a bicycle, car or public transportation. If we need to cross the ocean, we can take an airplane or a ship. When our car starts running out of gas, we drive to the nearest refuelling station and we fill up. If the gas station runs out of gas, a big truck comes and delivers more gas. If there is a problem with our car, we go to the nearest service and they can usually fix the problem pretty quickly.

When we get hungry, we can go to the store -- which is usually pretty well stocked -- and buy whatever we crave and cook ourselves a delicious meal. Or we can go to a restaurant and let ourselves be served. If we don't feel well, we can go to a doctor. If we have any kind of problem, odds are pretty good that there is someone specializing in that particular problem who can help us. If...

I could go on and on, but I think you get my point - sometimes it's very useful to stop and think about everything that is working well around us. Because most of the time most of the things are working so well that we don't even notice them. And noticing them can go a long way towards increasing joy and happiness in our lives...