h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

OK - I've got the other T shirts: one of my best days was when my son passed his driving test and took me to a country pub, for example - but as an atheist, I offer you the following, which is altered from an even more mushier version in "Woman's Own":

1)If you woke up this morning with more health than sickness, you are more blessed than those who will not survive the week (aka "the graveyard is full of people who would love to be in your shoes")
2)If you have never experienced the danger of battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture or the pangs of starvation, you are ahead of 500 million people in the world.
3)If you can attend a meeting without fear of harassment,arrest, torture or death, you are luckier than 3 billion people in the world.
4) If you have food in the fridge, clothes on your back, a roof over your head and a place to sleep, you are richer than 75% of the world
5) If you have money in the bank, in your purse and spare change in a dish somewhere, you are among the top 8% of the world's wealthy.

And it's doubled in spades if there's somebody out there who loves you

While all of these things may be true, we are all subject to our own perspective. As Billy Connolly said on Parky a couple of weeks ago, he lived in a tenement that should perhaps have been condemned and was abused by both his father and his aunt, but he didn't know that that wasn't 'normal' and generally thought he had had a happy childhood. It's all a question of perspective, you see.

So, you start from what you consider to be a 'normal' position, and anything worse than that makes you depressed and any improvements may make you feel elated (unless you're clinically depressed, in which case there's a good chance that you'll see the bad side of good things that happen to you .... if you see waht I mean).

Modern communications has a lot to answer for. If we didn't watch so much TV we wouldn't know what we appear to be missing. And don't the ad companies know it. Watch kids TV and look at the ads. All these wonders are out there for you, kids, all you need to do is persuade your parents to part with their hard earned cash and they can be YOURS. And as soon as you've got something, it'll go out of fashion, not that it'll really have lived up to your expectations anyway, so we'll show you new, bigger, better, faster, more fun things that you'll also want for your very own.

By the way, pack up all those old broken toys (you've discarded after a couple of weeks) in shoe boxes so we can take them off to Romania where the kids don't have any food, clothes, a roof over their heads or anyone to care about them. A pencil with an amusing Tazmanian Devil (TM) eraser on the end will give them weeks of amusement. Just don't ever let them see TV or they'll want what you've got as well.

Sorry about this rambling rant. I think you hit a nerve.

Reminds me of some quotes from rock stars. When asked what he was thankful for, Keith Richard said "Waking up in the morning". One of the Beatles, George I think, said when he was young he wanted money to buy a lot of stuff. Now that he has money, there's not much he wants to buy.

I admire the small children who think the greatest Christmas present is the big box something came in.