Appearing on Conan O’Brien’s show last year, comedian Louis C. K. lamented how frustrated people get when cell phones and cross-country flights are slow or faulty. “Everything is amazing right now and nobody’s happy,” he said. When people complain that their flight boarded 20 minutes late or that they had to sit on the runway for 40 minutes before takeoff, he asks a few additional questions.
“Oh really, what happened next? Did you fly through the air, incredibly, like a bird? Did you partake in the miracle of human flight?”
The appearance hit a nerve””with over a million YouTube views and counting””because it’s true: Whether it’s our impatience with technology or, more likely, with family members and friends, our complaints reflect how much we take for granted.
I am in full agreement with the article’s notion that we are without
gratitude for many things which happen in our everyday lives. After
a heart attack and a swift recovery, I was very much struck by the
miraculous nature of many commonplace things. The closeness of death
imparts an appreciation of life. In particular, just
walking outside and seeing grass, trees, flowers, and insects, I found
it absolutely amazing and delightful that – at a single glance – one could see countless
thousands, perhaps millions, of living things. Something fantastic
exists right under our very noses, yet we rarely acknowledge it. This
insignificant speck of dust on which we live in a universe with
possibly no other life – that speck of dust teems, indeed sparkles, with life. There
is something exquisitely miraculous happening here every moment of
every day which is quite beyond our ability to describe or to
comprehend.
Gratitude for creation and our humble part in it is always
appropriate.