Big picture, I feel insanely lucky to have so much that makes my life comfortable - good mental and physical health, a good education, friends I love, relative financial stability, a healthy child, access to nature.
There are so many injustices and adversities I haven’t been directly personally impacted by as a straight white middle class person with no disabilities, able to operate exclusively in my first language, in a culture I’m familiar with, in a developed country that’s not had a war on its soil in my lifetime and in a time and place where women are allowed to attend school and vote and have jobs and bank accounts.
I have not had to work half as hard as most people in the world. I feel like it would be churlish of me not to acknowledge this.
My daily life is far from straightforward, as I have complex and stressful caring responsibilities, and this can get me down at times.
But I try to give myself a kick up the arse and remember how fucking easy I have it compared to the vast majority of people in the world. And that nobody is entitled to ease and comfort and fulfilment and happiness. Life is about making do, and the rest is gravy.
The people I know who are most miserable tell themselves a story about how their wants are needs they can’t live without, and they deserve more than other people do. That they can only be OK in life if they are wildly professionally accomplished / creatively fulfilled / passionately cherished and desired / living entirely authentically and without compromise. They go through life blaming other people all the time and taking more than their fair share and generally being difficult and feeling hard done by.