Lately, I feel like the concept of keeping things in perspective has helped me tackle a lot of struggles, shortcomings, weaknesses, etc. Especially during those moments when I really want to complain (not that I still don’t give in to those moments!), keeping things in perspective helps me to hold my tongue or change the direction of my thoughts. For example: Our house is REALLY cold, especially since we have heaters in each room, rather than central heating. I find myself complaining about this a lot, but then I see the man standing in pouring rain near the freeway, holding a sign about being hungry. Would he complain to be under a roof, even if it were 50 degrees inside? Or how I wish I didn’t always wear the same outfits to work each week, and how I wish my wardrobe were not so limited. But then I hear about the need for clothes–any clothes–to be donated to homeless shelters to be given to people who only have one outfit to wear.

Perspective.

And this week, I got another dose of that. The volunteer coordinator at the women and children’s shelter of Seattle’s Union Gospel Mission e-mailed me, asking if World Vision had any volunteer opportunities this time of year. Last year, on World AIDS Day, the women and kids had put together Caregiver Kits–containers full of basic supplies which were sent off to home-based caregivers of HIV and AIDS patients in African countries. The coordinator said, “We want to give the women a chance to do something to help others who are less fortunate than they are.”

I’m thinking, these are women who are living in a homeless shelter, who don’t have their own homes, cars, probably no jobs. For their kids’ birthdays, a few elderly women from a local church throw monthly birthday parties and hand out gifts–and these few gifts from strangers are probably the only ones these kids get. Not so long ago, I was thinking that I am one of the luckiest kids on earth to have grown up with so much. Every time my birthday or Christmas rolled around, I gave my parents a list of the Babysitters Club or Sweet Valley Twin books that I needed to round out my collection, and I knew that my aunts and uncles would buy those books for me. And here were these kids who were so happy with simple yo-yos, imitation Battleship boardgames, and tiny kits of Legos.

But these women and children would love to do something to help people who are less fortunate? Wow. Most of us would think that they ARE the least fortunate compared with everyone else we know. That really hit home for me. No matter where we are in life, no matter what we have (or think we don’t have enough of), there is always someone who has less than we do–and there will always be someone who has more. The difference is whether we allow ourselves to throw a pity party when we think about those who have more than we do.

And Christmas is one of those times when materialism–and the haves and have nots–really shines through. You either come out of the season with brand new toys, or you’re in that stage where you don’t care so much about gifts anymore. There’s a Kmart commercial where a girl talks to the Kmart lightbulb about gift ideas for a guy friend…Scarves? Mittens? “What is he–a snowman?” asks the talking lightbulb. “He wants electronics!” The girl looks ecstatic and goes off to spend several hundred dollars on some electronic toy for her friend. OK, which guy doesn’t want electronics over scarves or mittens? But that also enforces the idea that small gifts like a scarf are not as appreciated as an expensive electronic toy.

Anyway. This is not what Christmas is all about. But don’t get me started on the whole materialistic aspect of it…the long list of toys (OK, I did that when I was a kid, but my list was of book titles), the gifts that get more $$ as each year passes, the NEED for this year’s coolest gift. Granted, I still get gifts for family members and some friends–and I still get caught up liking STUFF (as you could tell by my earlier post about the white elephant gift exchange)–but sometimes it is a struggle trying to balance being true to how I feel about Christmas and gifts with getting loved ones something that will make them happy. ARGH I could feel my heartbeat rising just thinking about all this.

Perspective. It’s all about perspective.