I have friends as well as clients in Houston and I've been reading everything I can as well as trying to get ahold of them making sure they're all ok (they are, by the way, thank goodness) -- but it's made me think about the bigger picture here . . .
There will always be tragedies in life -- just look at the news these days (politics aside) -- flooding in Houston and in India with lives lost, countless robberies, shootings, etc. A friend of mine from art school just lost one of her kids in a traffic accident. Horrible. Words fail me. The personal stories hit me the hardest.
There will always be horrors in life. Sometimes it feels like there can never be happiness with all the tragedy. It feels like when you try to celebrate the good things in your life, you also feel guilty for being happy when others aren't.
It's okay to feel overwhelmed when all you see from the news is bad. You start to feel a bit hopeless, don't you?
The problem is that we do get inundated with the sadness and we neglect to celebrate the little victories in our lives. Saturday mornings with a cup of coffee and your family, hell, actually WAKING UP on a Saturday morning -- your favorite sports team winning their game, meeting your favorite actor at a convention, I could go on, but I think I've made my point.
We have to have the ups with the downs -- we can't always be at one stage or another. We just can't function that way.
That's why I will always feel for those that are hit with tragedy, but I will always look at my life and be thankful for those little victories that give me balance.
Help the people in Houston by donating to your local Red Cross -- they need it.