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I Gotta Be Thankful

I don’t really understand why some teenagers feel the need to complain about every little thing in their life that they don’t like. For example, I was walking down the hallway at school, and I heard one girl say to her friend, “So I asked my mom for these $100 pair of jeans, and she only got me the ones that were $50. She is such a bitch!” First off, seriously? The most expensive pair of jeans that I own are like, $20, there is no need for a teenager to have a pair of $100 jeans. And secondly, your mom not buying you the “right kind of jeans” does not make her a bitch, it makes you an ungrateful daughter. People today put money before anything else, they think that the key to having a happy and successful life is to have money. I recently read the book, The Girl’s Guide to Homelessness, and it was a wake-up call. There are many people who have so much less than us, and we are taking it all for granted. We do not see that spending $50 on jeans is a huge deal, when it could feed someone for at least a week. I must admit, I do not normally splurge on things, but when I do, it’s on books, I can go in a bookstore and spend at least $100 if I have the money to; music also falls under that category, I’ll just go on iTunes and download songs until my heart is content. I realized that I do take things for granted last Spring Break. Me, my brother and dad went to Chicago, and while we were walking down the street, I saw a woman sitting on a curb huddled together with her toddler daughter, trying to keep warm in the cold. A man walked out of a doughut shop and handed her coffee for herand hot chocolate for her daughter and food for both of them, the look on her face was that of such thanks, that it made me realize what I’ve been taking for granted. Recently, I haven’t splurged majorly on anything, and if I do, it’s with my money that I’ve earned, and I take 5 seconds to say “thank you” for anything, for someone holding a door open for me, a waiter/waitress taking my order, the lunch ladies at school when they serve lunch, etc. I am going to end this with one of my favorite lyrics from blues singer/guitarist Jonny Lang: “I used to think I didn’t have a lot, now I realize just how much I’ve got, now everyday I’m gonna take the time and stop to be thankful, thankful.”