Here’s a question, and I’m sure some of you have heard this before. When you see a glass of water that is at the halfway point, do you see the glass as half full or half empty?
A few nights ago I reconnected with someone my kids would call a “mom-friend” that I hadn’t spent time with in about two or three years. We have kids roughly the same age and her son is in marching band with my oldest daughter. She’s Jewish, an accomplished artist, and we even shared the same divorce lawyer back in 2018. We started chatting about things, and I shared some of my frustrations about my oldest daughter’s college process — she wasn’t listening to me, wasn’t using a coach I found, etc. And in walked her oldest daughter, Ella.
Ella was gaunt, completely bald, and carried a backpack full of chemicals treating incurable brain cancer. She’s heading out soon to Seattle for an experimental treatment on this cancer that creates unbearable pressure in her skull, so much so she has a port in her head which helps relieve it.
Immediately, I felt ashamed. Here I was kvetching about annoyances with my healthy daughter while hers was fighting for her life. I wasn’t grateful enough for the health of my children and I knew it.
The hardest thing in our culture is to be grateful for what you have. Gratitude is counter-cultural.
America doesn’t run on Dunkin, it runs on envy. How often have we heard the phrase “keeping up with the Joneses,” as if this were an imperative toward which to strive? Someone always has more. Someone has a better car. Someone has a bigger house, nicer clothing, a newer phone. It never stops and if it ever did the entire economy would probably crash.
This leads to what author Steven Covey calls a “Scarcity Mentality.” Seeing the glass half-empty because someone else has more in their glass. A person trapped in this mentality lives in a world of never having enough – money, time, connections, attention, rest, health, happiness, credentials, power, or love. It touches every aspect of their lives. Their assumption of scarcity distorts and constricts their thinking and can mask talents and skills that are vital to their personal success. Living with a perspective of perpetual lack prevents the ability and the will to take risks. Worse yet, it cuts off the expectation for happiness and joy in life’s bounty.
When do we stop and say “I’m good, I have enough right now”? When do we look at the glass of water and see it as half full? It’s the same amount of water, it’s all in how we perceive it in relation to our need, our mindset.
The rabbis specifically gave us this prayer, the Bircat Hamazon, to say AFTER we have satiated ourselves. It is an antidote to the Scarcity Mentality. It blesses God for the bounty we’ve eaten, for the goodness in His world, for the rich earth and the bountiful land. It’s easy to be grateful for bread when you are hungry. It’s hard to be grateful when you have everything you need. It’s hard to be thankful in the good years, to look around and see how much you really have, but that’s exactly what the Bircat asks you to do — you ate your fill, you have all you need — that’s precisely the time you need to step back and humbly acknowledge the Creator of all.
Gratitude is a lesson I have to keep learning. I don’t think I’m alone in that.
I got home from our mom-date and thought about the health and beauty of my three girls. They each have their own struggles, sure, but such minor things in comparison to hers. And that night, I looked at them a little differently, had more patience with their demands and hugged them just a little bit tighter before bed.
Try to look at the glass of water and think “this is enough for now, do you need some water?”
Please add Ella, Raizel mi beit Yonatan v’Rut to your prayers this week for health and healing. Erev Tov.