I HAD NO SHOES

When I find myself wallowing in self-pity, I reflect on this and reinforce my gratitude for the blessings in my life. It's easy to overlook the misfortunes of others and take our own blessings for granted. It's essential to shift our focus towards what we do have and appreciate it, rather than dwelling on what we lack.

'I cried because I had no shoes, til I saw a man with no feet.'

I never complained of the vicissitudes of fortune, nor suffered my face to be overcast at the revolution of the heavens, except once, when my feet were bare, and I had not the means of obtaining shoes.

I came to the chief of Kfah in a state of much dejection,

and saw there

a man who had no feet.

returned thanks to God and acknowledged his mercies,

and endured my want of shoes with patience, and exclaimed,

“Roast fowl to him that’s sated will seem less Upon the board then leaves of garden cress. While in the sight of helpless poverty, Boiled turnip will a roasted pullet be.”

~SADI, The Gulistan, or Rose Garden, trans. Edward B. Eastwick, chapter 3, story 19, p. 129 (1880).