Today after school, Beckett and I got a McFlurry and then FaceTimed my Mom. It was nice.

I watch YouTube while I am on the elliptical. It feels like a fair trade and I don’t beat myself up about consuming that content if it is in service of working out.

Today, there was a video posted by a videographer that I really like titled ‘A Film Maker Without a Camera.’ It was a story about a young man that he met in Uganda while doing a shoot. The premise of the story was how this guy makes videos without owning any gear.

If and when he is going to make a video he has to borrow a very basic dslr camera from his church and then has to find a computer to borrow so he can edit the footage.

The video was well done and it left me feeling inspired and motivated. Not necessarily to make video but to take a second and appreciate, everything. I walked outside and just looked up at the sky and palms waving around in against the backdrop of the clouds and sun.

It is so easy to get so micro-focused on these meaningless things that we worry about that we forget about our health, our friends, our opportunity and good fortune. We can quickly get obsessed with the few things that aren’t perfect and instantly be in a self-loathing state of victimhood.

Your problems might not seem like such a big deal if you didn’t have running water. And sure that might seem cliche but I think that is just a cop-out so we don’t have to think about it. So, I don’t have to think about it.

Sure I have worked hard for what I have but I also was very fortunate and lucky to be born where I was when I was to the parents I have. How different would my life be if I was born in a s third-world country or into war fare? I don’t get to take credit for those chips falling in place.

Now I am not saying that we should feel ashamed for the way we have it here in the West. What good would that do anyway? But, I do think we owe it to ourselves and the rest of the world to make sure that we classify 80% of our problems as ‘first-world problems.’

• I can’t believe the PS5 is sold out.
• Amazon said the package would arrive today but they pushed it back to tomorrow, ugh!
• I can’t believe I cracked the screen on my iPhone, again.
• My boss is just so demanding.
• These kids just do not want to brush their teeth.

VS

• I don’t have the medicine I need for my sick kid.
• We won’t have dinner tonight.
• I hope the soldiers don’t stop in our village.
• We don’t have drinking water.

This video about the filmmaker from Uganda specifically hit home with me as I have talked before about gear and also how too many options make a tyrant of us all. It is true.

We live in a society of absolute abundance and we have built entire enterprises around comfort. (Alexa, turn on the office lights.) And, yet in our same town, in our same state, our same country… in this same world people are living in absolutely terrible conditions.

So, what? This isn’t news to anyone. We all know this. What are you going to do donate $5 a month to some food pantry?

I don’t know what I am going to do. In the first order I want to make sure I don’t forget. Maybe I will burn Uganda, or the filmmakers name into a wood panel on my wall, maybe I will print a still from the video. I need to do something so I don’t slip back into my insular western ways.

It is easy to forget just how good you have it. Just how good I have it. We are pre-disposed to find and focus on the things that are wrong. You can thank our caveman mind for our negative bias. It is pretty important to pay attention to things that are going wrong if it means you don’t get eaten by a lion. Not too many lions in my neighborhood though.

So how might we learn something from this…

I think the most important thing is to let this new or fresh perspective sink in. Once you have, I would try to use it as an anchor to help you operate from a place of deep gratitude in your everyday life. I would also think that it should open your eyes to the tremendous opportunity that is the remainder of your life.

If he can make films without a camera… what is stopping you? What is stopping me?

-Nate