A rant.

I've noticed lately that a lot of people around me are preoccupied with minuscule problems and too focused on themselves to notice what's really going on in the world. We all have problems. Every single one of us, but (I know it may sound corny) there is so much life to live and there is so much more to life than what we are facing, individually. There's a really big picture that we don't always see or care about.

If we could just stop and think outside of ourselves for a little bit, we would realize that there is so much beauty in life. In simple, everyday things. Simple things that are bigger than us and our problems.

There are people suffering real pain. Real gut wrenching pain. The kind of sadness that doesn't let you live, doesn't let you move, doesn't let you think things will ever get better. And sometimes we have these tiny problems, bumps in the road, that are nothing. We obsess and obsess. It's human nature, I know, and we all do it. I am glad for every tough experience I've ever gone through. I think it's made me strong and it's made me realize that worse things could always happen.

I was in the car with my friend the other day and a really sad topic came up. And it made me realize that we focus so much on negativity that sometimes it eats at us until it's all we see.

So, in essence, my rant is about people and their problems and the way it consumes them and how they don't see anything but themselves.

My cousin was diagnosed with cancer as a baby. She had to have her eye removed (I can't tell you exact terminology, science has never been my forte). She had a stay at the Ronald McDonald Children's House (which is a really wonderful organization). I would go visit her and I would also get to see some of the other kids. It was not an easy experience. Every time I would go visit I would end up in the bathroom crying (getting teary eyed thinking about it now). I slowly started to notice that while I was in the bathroom crying, these kids weren't shedding tears. These kids, with, for the most part, shortened life spans, were sitting around, playing, laughing and joking while I was in the bathroom crying, hiding from them so they wouldn't see me feeling bad for them.

I remember the pain my cousin went through during chemo.
I remember how sad my family was. I remember seeing sadness in my mother like i had never seen before.
I remember time going by so slowly and just hoping that from one day to the next day things wouldn't take a change for the worst.
My cousin is 13 now.

On a car ride with my friend the other day we started talking about what a monster cancer really is. It totally drains your body and your spirit. It consumes you and and those around you.
It's true sadness. It makes no room for pettiness.

My friend's uncle recently passed away from cancer. From what my friend tells me about him, I just know he was the kind of man that was full of life and passionate about it. Never missing a beat. Talented, smart and caring. She says he was not ready to die. He wanted to live.

...Which leads me to my point (because sometimes I ramble on and on). Life, good and bad, is ours for the living. We can be petty, childish, obsessive over things that in the large scope of things don't matter OR we can take the bad with the good.
We can focus or energy on other things. Positive things. And we can learn to be survivors.