It’s so easy to look around and wonder why we don’t have what others have, or why we have some burdens to bear while others seem to skip through life without a care.

It’s easy to wonder why we’ve been saddled with a particular task, a duty or an obligation while thinking that others have no idea what we deal with.

It’s easy to ignore all the good around us and focus only on wondering when things will change.

It’s easy to feel like the weight of the world is on our shoulders, and it’s even easier to wish that we could pass it off to someone else so that they could walk in our shoes for once.

In the darkness of your life, it’s easy to wish for the light that friends and acquaintances seem to bathe in daily. At night, it’s easy to let the happiness that does exist in our lives be stolen.

At night, it’s easy to not notice the sun that’s beginning to come up for us.

“Comparison is the thief of joy” is one of Theodore Roosevelt’s most well-known quotes. It’s also painfully applicable in our own lives – painful because it can force us to do some serious thinking, often times with a heavy heart. But today I am thankful for its reminder that we often have it far better than we ever bother to think about, and that we need to do it more often to keep the darkness at bay.