May Our Frustrations Point Us To The Frustrations Of Others

​Many people in my community have been without water the last couple of days. It's frustrated me, but likely not for the reasons you might assume.

I follow the Hanover County Government social media pages. It's where I used to live and where my boys still attend school. So I have peeked in with some interest as they've updated the community the last couple of days on the status of the water outage.

It has been difficult viewing to say the least. None of that difficulty has been associated with the leaders doing the updating.

The kindest sentiment I can use to describe most of those following along and commenting during those updates has been frustrated. I get it, being without water for a couple of days presents challenges to the lives of people used to having water. But I would also describe the comments of no small number of those commenters with less kind sentiments, like rude and irrational and at times mean.

Comments calling for people's jobs. Comments ridiculing the way the leaders were dressed. Comments challenging the intelligence of our leaders. Comments suggesting the community had been betrayed. All over a water outage that everyone knows will be very short-lived.

Short-lived, that is, at least by comparison.

I have been to Honduras twice in the last 5 years. Not one person in Hanover County will ever know water outage like the entire country of Honduras knows on a regular basis. And the water they have is always subject to a water boil advisory. One of the main messages we heard before traveling there was do NOT drink the water.

And flushing toilets and showers? Well those are luxuries to them like having a private jet would be to me.

So yes, it has been very difficult for me to follow along and watch people berate people who are working hard to solve a 48 hour water outage - people who will not QUIT working hard until it's resolved - while knowing that so few people in this world are giving a second thought to the nearly 2 billion people around the world living without water EVERY SINGLE DAY.

People who at times get frustrated by their living conditions and march toward our southern borders and get their own form of berated, called freeloaders and worst. When actually, they are just people frustrated living every day without water headed to a place they've heard about where people turn knobs and access endless supplies of it daily.

And flush toilets.

I wonder, when the water comes back on, and it will - we all get to live sure of that - will anyone repurpose the frustration they've experienced being without water for 48 hours and feel some of it for the people who've lived their whole lives without it?

That is a valuable and often overlooked inherent purpose of emotions. We get to feel certain things as a way of learning how others feel in similar situations. Many people now know firsthand how hard life is without water; I've heard and seen them relentlessly express that the last two days. But will that make it any harder for them to sleep knowing that's a daily feeling for nearly 2 billion people (25% of the world)?

My hope is the answer will be yes. If that is you, I encourage you to read the book, Thirst, by Scott Harrison. Harrison is the founder of charity: water.

If you're interested in learning more about his non-profit and maybe supporting it, you can visit:

www.charitywater.org

It might be a nice place to hang out for a bit today and take a break from the county government sites, for our water will soon return.

That's a given.

A given that is not given to billions of our brothers and sisters around the world.