Gratitude, but not complacency

Ever since my "vacation," I've been thinking about the concept of gratitude, but not complacency.

I say "vacation" because we visited places like the killing fields and S-21, a school that the Khmer Rouge turned into a prison/torture center. This isn't the type of vacation that most people go for, but similar to how I like to challenge myself by running long distances, I also like to use vacation as a way to learn about something.

Anyway, back to my point. In Cambodia, I felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude from the people there. But I also saw this.

From afar, you might think "oh, what a pretty stupa," but it's actually full of skulls that belonged to just a small fraction of the people who were killed by the Khmer Rouge. It documents the type of injury on each of the skulls so we know how they died. What's especially amazing about the horrific Cambodian genocide is that these people were all basically killed individually -- by blows to the head, with knives, by throwing them against a tree. It would have been relatively easy for a small group to stand up to this regime.

I think my point is that gratitude can easily slip into complacency, and complacency is a very slippery slope. While it's easy for that balance to tip too far into complacency, it's also quite easy to become ungrateful and take things for granted.

I tried to write a paragraph about how this ties to my life, but in the end, that just didn't seem appropriate. I think it's pretty clear where this dichotomy surfaces in life, so I'll leave it to you to think about how it applies to you.

My takeaway is to approach each day with a subtle tension between the two. Grateful for my husband, my health, my job, my dogs, my house; but also exploring options, testing limits, and avoiding complacency.