The months of February and March have been a whirlwind for me. I have never traveled so much in my entire life. From the first weekend of February to now, I have had somewhere to be every weekend. I have honestly gotten into the routine of moving out of my dorm on Friday afternoons and moving back in Monday mornings, and the trend does not seem to have an end in the near future.
With this comes the constant loading and unloading of what seems like my entire life from my dorm to my car and back. Living on the fourth floor of my building, you can assume this is a task that involves multiple trips, and I often find myself annoyed with the process. Until one week, when I was unloading my things from a ski trip with my family and lugging it all up to my room, I paused and thought, “How lucky am I?”
How lucky am I, to have somewhere to be every weekend? To have people to see every weekend. To have a reason to load and unload my car constantly. To have so many things to load and unload. I know people who would kill for this kind of life or these kinds of experiences, and here I am living it out and annoyed that I have skis to carry up the elevator. How lucky am I to have skis in the first place?! And how lucky am I to be healthy enough to be able to ski?!
This was honestly a big perspective shift for me. It’s challenged me to bring more gratitude into my life. My daily life is someone’s dream, and I’m gaining more appreciation for that every day.
I’ve spent many of my past weekends driving and flying for hours and hours on end, usually all by myself. I’ve put more miles on my car in the past two months than I probably have in the last year. I’ve spent probably about just as many days traveling as I have actually on my trips. I’ll be the first to admit, sometimes this seemed extremely inconvenient and exhausting. But at the same time, I was being constantly reminded of how lucky I was. How lucky am I to have friends and family worth driving across the state for? How lucky am I to get to spend weekends with the people I love? How lucky am I to get to travel the world?
This busy time in my life has unexpectedly become one the most transformative seasons for me. I’m realizing what a privilege my life is. And being a college student, the gratitude has of course found its way into my education. When I’m weighed down with homework or stressed about exams, all I have to do is ask myself a few questions. How lucky am I to be educated? How lucky am I to be challenged? How lucky am I to attend one of the top universities in the world? How lucky am I to live out a dream I’ve had for so long? When I’m homesick, the same ideas apply. I find myself moping and reminiscing about living at home, but then I remember: how lucky am I to have a home and a family worth missing so much? Everything is a blessing if you see it as one.
Life is truly such a privilege. I will be the first person to say that I take it for granted every single day. But honestly, to wake up with breath in my lungs makes me one of the luckiest people in the world, and it is something I’m learning to appreciate more than anything. Though we all have bad days, bad weeks, and bad years, a simple question can shift our entire perspective on our circumstance. So, I ask you, how lucky are you?