By Wes Annac, Culture of Awareness

Plenty of things about life can bring us down, and it’s easy to think we have it rougher than the rest of the world. Depression is a hard-hitting spiritual sickness that affects a lot of people, and if our outlook is negative, everything we do, feel and experience will reflect it. Our negative circumstances will seem to validate our thoughts, and we’ll be trapped in a series of awful experiences that, little do we know, we can escape at any time.

Instead of being depressed about life, let’s think about how fortunate we are to be alive. Consciousness is a gift that should be cherished, and if life itself weren’t enough, most of us have a stable living situation to boost. We have food, water, electricity and a roof over our heads, and that’s more than a lot of people can say.

Next to spirituality, I think survival should be our biggest concern.

Some people take their drive to survive too far, and when they secure a stable life, the mindset that caused them to work so hard gets out of hand and creates greed and an unhealthy fascination with vanity and materiality. They used to work for survival, but now, they care more about increasing their wealth or corporate conquest. They forget how much of a blessing it is to survive, and their greed takes over as they slowly lose themselves.

I’m not saying we should be like them, but I am saying we should focus at least a little on survival. In focusing on it, we can be thankful for how easy it is for some of us. Yes, we have to work to afford the basic necessities on a planet that freely provides food, water and the means to house ourselves, but at least we have the basics.

At least we have food, water, and a home or apartment (or trailer). At least we aren’t worried where our next meal will come from or if we can escape our tyrannical government and pray that some other less tyrannical country will shelter us from our otherwise inevitable demise. At least we have all of these creature comforts we take for granted, even though they’re unnecessary.

Don’t get me wrong – developed nations can be just as rough as the rest of them, and too many people suffer here in the US. They have to search for their next meal, and they’re caught up in a violent culture that creates criminals out of intelligent people with the potential to raise awareness and change the world. The fact that the same things are going on right here should increase our awareness and our gratitude for a stable life, and the next time we’re upset about something trivial, maybe we can think about the less fortunate, who’d love to have as little worries as us.

We can realize that everyone is struggling, and most of the struggles out there are infinitely worse than ours. We couldn’t handle them with anywhere near the amount of strength as the people who experience them, and our own emotional drama is usually enough to make us want to crawl in bed and hide from the world.

I understand sadness, believe me, but maybe things aren’t as bad as we like to think. Maybe things are actually great and we’re wasting a miracle by getting upset about all of these trivial things. If we could open our eyes and see what’s really happening on this planet, we might see that we have so much to be thankful for and for the most part, we’re missing out on it.

Then, we’ll be confronted with a sense of urgency to enjoy life, love the people around us and find a way to get through the bad times without letting them defeat us. Knowing that a lot of people have it a lot worse than us can increase our strength and encourage compassionate action, and all the while, we can keep in mind that life is meant to be loved.

Social awareness can drive us to make a positive change in this broken world, and it can help us remember that things aren’t as bad as we tend to think. Once we remember this and ease up on the pressure, life opens up for us and amazes us with its blessings while inspiring us to share the wealth in any way we can – even if it’s just by writing our feelings or composing uplifting music.

Anything that comes from the heart and is offered with the intent of helping people is valuable, and remembering that life is a blessing can restore our love and compassion for ourselves and the rest of humanity. Once we learn to love ourselves and appreciate our circumstances, we can set our sights on contributing to humanity’s evolution.