Everything is Relative

Everything is relative. Isn't it? Or at least, most everything is relative.

When you're sick, you just want to feel what it's like to be healthy. You realize how great healthy feels once you're sick. Normal doesn't feel so great until you cease to feel normal. I guess it's just a fact of human existence. Most everything has a value based on a comparison to something else. We also become too habituated to our current state and therefore lose perspective. We take things for granted.

Sometimes we yearn for the polar opposite. In the winter, we want to feel the hot summer sun; during a hot summer day, we wish for a cool breeze. When we're sitting alone, experiencing peace and quiet, we wish we were at a party with friends. At a party, we often wish we were home alone, enjoying some solitude and reading a book. We're restless animals.

Relativity can be a trap too. Have you ever seen neighbors engage in lawn warfare? Or friends and colleagues seek money and stature just so they could feel better about themselves because they have more than others do?

I have a sore throat today. The cold may be settling in my chest as well. My energy level is way down. I don't feel like doing anything but laying around the house. Now I realize how great it is to feel healthy. It could be much worse though. There is always someone who has it much worse than you do. It's just the way it is. My brother had a heart and liver transplant about eighteen months ago. He's been struggling to feel good ever since, fighting challenges to gain weight and to find out why his liver isn't functioning correctly. He can't work much anymore. He struggles to walk a flight of stairs. He undergoes invasive tests frequently and takes a number of drugs to fight organ rejection. That's just a sliver of what he's been going through. And he has a pretty good attitude. So, I'm actually doing really, really good, relatively speaking.

Is there anything that's absolute? Maybe love. Love shouldn't be relative or conditional. But that's another post.