Russell D., Northmont Middle School
Counting Blessings
The COVID-19 pandemic came out of nowhere, and darkened the world as quickly as a light being turned off. The virus has shut down the plans of many people across the world. Never hope that things will always go perfectly because they won’t. However, if something goes wrong, don’t lose hope. If someone takes time to remember all the good things they have, it often leads to them being a happier person overall.
Before the pandemic, my family had our summer vacation planned out. We knew what we were going to do this summer. We would have gone on a trip to Mammoth Cave in Kentucky, spent the 4th of July with friends, gone camping, and a few other things.
Then the pandemic hit. All of our plans, and those of many others, were shut down faster than anyone could have imagined. Suddenly, we didn’t know what to do. Everything that we had hoped for this summer became unavailable.
Needless to say, we were seriously underprepared for the virus. It was impossible to go anywhere for risk of spreading COVID-19. We could only talk to friends over the phone. We could go camping in the backyard, but it wouldn’t be the same.
I couldn’t see my friends, couldn’t go anywhere, and I couldn’t even go to church. There wasn’t much to do outside by myself. My parents, who are both teachers, were very busy preparing for the next school year. I couldn’t play many video games online with my friends, since there aren’t many games that we all have. I did the only thing I could do: I cried. A lot.
It was more than a short while before I was happy again. One day, I remembered a book I had read when I was about 5. In it, many bad things were happening to a family. They had every right to be fearful and distraught, but in the book, they were somehow still happy and grateful. Their secret was that they counted their blessings, all the good things about their lives. I knew it was in a book, but there couldn’t have been any harm in trying. I counted all of my friends and family. I counted the good things that had happened to me. Most importantly, I counted how many people I knew that were at their homes, how many were safe from the virus. When I finished, I realized that I have many more things to be thankful for than I thought.
If you count your blessings, you will find that you have a lot to be happy about. I think that it is very important for people to be happy. If you focus on being happy, it will be harder to be sad, and it will be easier to get through tough times. Roy T. Bennett said, “Count your blessings, not your problems.”
