One summer I worked in downtown Houston. It was common for people to wake up in their air-conditioned house, go into their air-conditioned garage, get in their air-conditioned cars, drive downtown to a parking garage, get out of their cars and walk through the underground tunnels (yes – they are real and, yes – they have Starbucks). People literally don’t have to step outside. People literally never experience a moment without climate control. Most of us live a version of this story.
When this is your experience, two things happen: 1) we get weaker (60 degrees feels cold, and 85 degrees feels hot). And 2) we think humans have got this whole nature thing figured out. We are the masters of the universe. We are big and powerful and important.
Then BAM!…we lose power…and we remember that we are really small and really insignificant.
It also reminds us that most of the world lives without a reliable power grid. We flip out when we lose power once a year. They shrug when they only get power once a week.
I am not trying to say this isn’t hard, or that it isn’t important. We can and always should strive for better. But, forgive me, I am trying to practice gratitude…while we strive for a better power grid let’s also use this to gain a better perspective. At least…that’s what I need to hear right now as I drink day old coffee and melt ice off logs in my fireplace to raise the temperature in our house above 34.