During the summer before my senior year of college I started experiencing pain more severe than anything else I had ever felt before. Sometimes the pain was so severe that I thought I might pass out. It was intense. excruciating. miserable. The culprit? A tooth.
Unable to handle the pain anymore, I made an appointment with my dentist. When I finally met with him, he informed me that I’d need to see a specialist who might have to do a root canal on my front tooth. My front tooth.
When I saw the specialist, he did various (painful) tests to see what was wrong. What he found? My front tooth had an abscess that would require treatment. The options? A root canal, surgery, or pulling the tooth…Wait, what? Pull my front tooth? I don’t think so. I opted for the root canal and cried both in the office and on the car ride home at the thought of having this done. If the root canal didn’t work, we’d have to move on to the other options. This wasn’t fair. I was just about to begin my senior year. I had a lot to look forward to-graduate school interviews, presentations, and a great final year of undergrad. I had taken great care of my teeth my whole life, had braces, and had worn my retainer like I was instructed. This shouldn’t happen to me.
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At the same time, someone a year younger was receiving treatment for cancer.
It’s funny, really. Here I was, crying about having to have a root canal while someone younger than me was dealing with cancer treatments. While a parent was taking her child to chemotherapy or radiation, I was upset and feeling sorry for myself because I had a tooth problem. Which then just made me cry even more. How could I be so selfish that I could be upset over having to have a root canal when other people were suffering much worse than me?
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Everyday we are bombarded with tragedies both on the news and in our own lives.
Everyday someone is diagnosed with cancer, heart disease, kidney failure-you name it.
Everyday a child buries their parent, a husband buries their wife, a sister buries her brother, a mother buries her son.
I’ve seen my fair share of tragedies, whether it be a friend whose mom passed away, a dance teacher who died at the young age of 24 just before she was to be married, a young man who died leaving his family to mourn him…well,you get the picture.
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Does it matter, though? Does knowing that people have it worse off than you make your load any less to carry? Does seeing these things make it a little easier for you to get through the day?
It’s really easy to get caught up in our own lives while failing to see the bigger picture. It’s easy to think that everything that could go wrong will go wrong and that life won’t get any easier. It’s easy to think that we’re alone in the world and that no one could possibly understand what we’re going through. Whenever I really start to feel this way, I try to keep things in perspective. I try to remember that those deadlines I have to meet aren’t there to punish me, but are there to challenge. I try to remember that even when I wake up in the morning with a throbbing headache or a stomachache, at least I’m alive. At lease I can see and hear and touch and feel.
I try to remember that even though things are bad right now, they won’t always be.
I try to keep things in perspective and realize that the little things that I am upset or angry about would be welcome distractions from people facing much more severe obstacles in their lives.
It doesn’t make our day to day challenges any less. It just makes us see that it’s really not as bad as we thought.
Joni
jeannettemarie28
sarahlew87
twyf
You inspire me. I am so proud of you, my Grasshopper!
I was thinking about this post a lot this week. A girl from my graduating class, who was actually both a valedictorian and named “Most Likely to Succeed,” has been losing her vision. She keeps getting sent to different doctors, including some kind of neuro-ophthalmologist, and no one has been able to pinpoint a diagnosis for her, other than that the vision loss she’s already suffered is likely irreversible. She’s one of the nicest, most genuine people I have ever met, and this just breaks my heart. Still, despite all of this, she’s leaving it all up to God. I don’t know that I would be able to stay this strong if I was experiencing all uncertainty she’s currently facing. I’m mad on her behalf, because she doesn’t deserve this. It’s so important to keep our own troubles in perspective; I know I have been trying to do this…