In what ways are you fortunate? In what ways are you unfortunate?

1. I’m a first worlder. Holy shit did I win the birth lottery.
2. I’m a 21st century first worlder. I literally have it better than 99% of all people were born generations before me. Fuck yes, modern medicine and human rights.

That pretty much says it all.

I’m some kind of a nerd. I have a burning desire to learn about intellectual things. That gives me some unique knowledge that I can use in various situation. I learn easier at school with that too. And the downside? My mind is too occupied by my nerdy hobbies that I don’t have time to care for what people in my age are interested in. As a result I’m quite behind the trend and have to back off when the conversation turns to the latest fashion and stuff. My ability to make friends and start conversation is affected, and people sometimes look at me as if I was from another planet.

@Mariah: “In what ways are you fortunate?”

I love this question. The practice of gratitude has helped me really see just how fortunate I am. The more I ask myself this question, the “richer” I seem.

@Mariah: “In what ways are you unfortunate?”

When I ask myself this question, it seems to frame things in very unhelpful ways. For example, I could answer that I’m unfortunate to have chronic pain issues and severe sleep apnea. Or I could look at any number of things about my life that haven’t gone the way I had hoped.

However, when I ask the first question and engage in gratitude regularly, it becomes clear that to put my health issues in the category of “unfortunate” is neither helpful nor accurate. There are things about my pain that allow me to see more clearly – possibly better than I had prior to my pain.

Also, as someone who was born in a war-free zone of relative riches in a time with modern medicine and relative peace, I am undoubtedly fortunate.

So, I like to ask myself the first question often, which tends to make the second question obsolete.

I was very fortunate for a long time until the recession wiped me out between 2010 and 2013. I am still fortunate in the sense that I am very adaptable and resilient, still manage to find humor in a lot of things inspite of some really dark days coping with the fallout from this situation. Right now I am on an emotional roller coaster, was very excited a few weeks ago as a little place I am wanting to live in, move to, looked like it was opening up, but now the deal has fallen through as of last week and I am floundering again, on a time line to find a new living situation in the next few months. There is still hope that these people will find a house to buy, but they are being extremely frugal and picky and I can no longer just drift along for months and months waiting on them to buy a house.

Today I am just saying ” fuck it” and going out for a movie and massage. The good news, I have a lot of work coming up this month so more cash in the bank, the bad news, I have no idea where I am going to land again in a few months and depending on the situation I may be having to give up my current work for something different. I am fortunate very, in the sense that a lot of people wouldn’t have weathered this shit storm half as well as I have. lol I may get knocked down but I always get up again.

I am very fortunate that I was built perfect.
Except for my one only unfortunate flaw: I am too humble.

Matt and I feel really financially fortunate right now, we were both privileged enough to have gotten a higher education in a field that pays well. We’re DINKs, and despite his massive student loans, we’re not struggling.

Course we both got shafted on health lol. He was born without a left femur and has so has a prothetic leg. I was born with a stupid immune system that attacks my body. Nobody’s got it all ¯\(ツ)/¯

Good luck can’t last a lifetime unless you die young.

Not my words, but I stole them so long ago that I no longer recall who from.

unfortunate
Hung like a gerbil.

fortunate
Everything else.

Fortunate
Great parents
A happy childhood
A good education
Many job opportunities
A prosperous and interesting career
Cherished friends and lovers
Relatively good intellect and health
A creative bent

Unfortunate
I’m now old enough to remember and long for a past I recall (or at least imagine I do) when life was simpler, people were more civil, snark and cynicism had yet to become the coin of the realm, and ISIS was only an Egyptian goddess.

I’m fortunate in that I have a high metabolism and am fairly energetic. I’m unfortunate in that I lack patience, and am less tolerant than I should be of what I perceive to be the flaws in others. But I’m woking on it!

I’m a handsome bastard & get a ton of female attention/attraction.
The wife hits hard…very hard :(

I have experienced a lot of stress and trauma in my life, starting at a young age, and I am a sensitive person probably ill equipped to deal with a lot of the things that have been thrown my way. Probably partly in response to that, I have struggled for most of my life with my emotional health. I also have less than ideal physical health.

I am so fortunate, it would be difficult to list all of the ways in which my life is abundant. I want for nothing, I am secure, fed, clothed, sheltered, loved, socialized, I have access to unlimited information, art, music, entertainment. I have an incredible drive to keep going and to come out on top, to improve myself every day. Although I rarely feel successful, the desire to try again and to try harder always manages to reappear. I also have beautiful eyebrows.

@ucme, plus you have staff for a great deal of things.

Health bullshit has haunted me for 25 years now! I’m sick of it. I feel pretty unlucky about it.

I feel lucky my husband is overall a good guy. He works hard, is loving, cute, and has integrity.

I feel lucky that I lived in Florida most of my adult life. It always feels like vacation. It never fades, even after almost 20 years.

I feel lucky that I never knew I couldn’t do something because I was a girl. I mostly liked a lot of “girl” things, but when I liked to do “guy” things it was treated just the same. I was the generation that I think that was all changing significantly. Not all people my age had my same experience of “equality.”

I feel lucky to have some very close, very funny, and very caring, girlfriends. Thank God for them.

I feel lucky that I was very close to my sister most of my life, and hate that family BS has hurt that relationship somewhat. I take part of the blame. There was a time I felt like she was my own body. Maybe that sounds weird? It’s like the attachment is more than just emotional. She and my husband were/are the most important people in my life. Losing one, would feel like losing a limb.

I’m feeling unlucky the last few years have been really hard on my husband and me. He was laid off and then another job didn’t work out. It’s emotionally and financially a little disconcerting to say the least. Thank goodness we saved for a rainy day. On balance, we have been lucky with our jobs over time.

I feel lucky to be an American and live in America. Sometimes that feeling suffers a little. Especially, when it comes to the cost of health care. However, overall I feel safe, and that I had opportunity being an American.

Having staff has nowt to do with fortune, seperates us classy bastards from the peasant dross

I was born in Alberta when they times were good. I don’t have any bad side.

As @trolltoll said, I’m a first worlder. My ribs aren’t visible through thin, malnourished skin. I’m healthy. I have food, I’m not in a country where abuse is common or where I would be sent away to be married at a young age.
I’m living life better than a lot of people.
I have a lot of great things in my life, honestly, I can’t list them all.

Disadvantages?
I am a young person in a world that is getting quite terrible. Constant wars, overpopulation, poverty, hunger, terrorists, etc. The world has gotten better in some ways, it’s now uncommon to have families going into town to see someone being executed, but now we have ISIS and bomb threats and it’s kind of worrying that for the next 80 years of my life or however long I live, I’ll be living through global warming and everything else.
But I’m an optimist, so I’m going to be happy. I’m in a safe area living a happy life, so why shouldn’t I be happy?

FORTUNATE: no debt, no eyeglasses needed except for reading super small print, very nice, fairly large home with lovely decor, I feel so safe in this gated community, amazing hearing, husband is nicer than any man I’ve ever dated or married, (twenty eight years now), live fifteen miles from a wonderful daughter and her two kids, am not on any medication, have great credit, a close girlfriend who calls me for a two hour chat every Saturday. I also seem to have a knack for the stock market. All inherited money. I worked one year out of my life in the public.
UNFORTUNATE: my other daughter is a mess in every way and her insanity and multiple addictions caused me to have bleeding ulcers last year with a three day hospitalization and her son looks like he’s going to follow in her footsteps, my husband had kidney cancer nine years ago and , last September, he had cancerous cells in his thyroid. He went into the hospital, walking fast and confidently, for “day surgery” and they removed half the organ but he then needed a second surgery that evening. All the anesthesia was too much for him and he, not being watched, stood up afterwards then fell down and broke his femur resulting in a third surgery and now I’m pretty sure he’ll never walk normally again. He doesn’t appear to care but I have a lot more to do now that he sits watching Star Trek or sleeps. I can’t shake my anger at the hospital for doing this to him. Because he fell he had to stay in the hospital for a month plus, then transferred to rehab for a month and I just lost my appetite worrying about him. A doctor told my daughter , “he’s not going to make it” but he was wrong and he can walk on the treadmill for six minutes but needs other kinds of exercises. Each morning I wonder if he’s alive. In a way, I’m trapped. My husband cannot just stand up for more than a few minutes and he can’t climb stairs. This cancels out any hope of vacations. People walk on vacations. He cannot rise from sitting on a floor anymore. My daughter’s son is very odd, he won’t speak to me unless my daughter tells him to and, even then, he doesn’t look at me. I’m glad his sister is the opposite although their father has not been in our house for ten years and I resent it. I had three teeth come out and implants are two thousand dollars each. I think my unfortunates outweigh my fortunates. Thanks for letting me vent. If I bragged too much I apologize. I’m trying to look at the bright side but it rarely works.

I was fortunate to be born into a well-off family, to have a lot of opportunities, to be intelligent enough to do well academically and have enough interests that I never seem to get bored. Also fortunate to be in good health and not have any serious health issues.

I was unfortunate to have OCD from a young age, as well as an “abnormal” sexuality that will always put me in the minority and earn scorn from a decent part of the population.