I have loved drugs and hated God. I’ve known addicts, dealers, teenage mothers, the suicidal, the murderous, the homeless and the wounded. I’ve been to my share of funerals, met a man who was tortured in Africa, and I even spent almost an entire night running through the dark to find someone who had run away in a mad desperation.

Behind the closed doors of my upper-middle-class neighborhoods were alcoholics, wife-beaters and marriages as broken as their faith in the nobility of wealth. And I come from a high-class city — the most Republican county in America.

Through my own personal experience, it is clear to me now that no person on this earth is ever completely safe from tragedy. It is the nature of our existence; it is one of the very defining elements of our lives.

There has yet to be a generation born in America that has not been baptized in the fires of war, plagues and poverty.

But for everything I’ve ever been through, I always could have gone through worse.

I’ve never gone hungry. I’ve never watched someone die of a preventable disease. I’ve never been unjustly arrested for political dissent.

Until a few years ago, I never had to worry about terrorists. I’ve never had to work until I collapsed from exhaustion, only to get a dollar for my day’s work.

I’ve never had to steal to get money.

I’ve never fallen asleep to the sound of gunshots.

I’ve never been afraid the police might not respond to my calls because they thought my neighborhood was too dangerous even for them.

Looking back on everything that I was not subjected to as a child, it is clear most of my problems have never been so terrible.

I have constant headaches due to my unique allergies and sinuses, and I’ve even gone through two surgeries to improve them. Despite the surgery, every moment I’m awake I have a headache, at least to some degree.

I could be angry this is what I have to deal with, but I realize there are people out there who have my exact same problem who couldn’t even get surgery to improve their condition.

And then I think about people who have much worse conditions but not the means to treat them. Thinking of a 12 year-old leukemia patient who still plans for the future makes dealing with my daily pains as easy as convincing an Irishman to have a drink on St. Patrick’s Day.

And that’s why gratitude is touted by every religion you can think of. Half the reason people are miserable is because they don’t take their situation into the proper perspective.

Of course you’re in pain. But part of the reason we as human beings experience pain is for the exact same reason we experience joy—so we can experience it together.

If you have a clear perspective, it’s more difficult to ignore the pains of your fellow human beings.

I’ve looked on with sympathy to people afflicted with sinus infections. I used to get them almost once every two weeks, so I like to give people crazy advice like, “Blow your nose through a rubber snorkel filled with water.”

And if they do it, it’s only because they know I have experience with sinus infection, and therefore have no reason to question my authority.

Who do I have to thank for such sweet moments? That’s right, the daily knife of pain sticking straight into my forehead.

How could we all grow as people if the weekly drinking binge weren’t followed by the next morning’s hell? Although it might take a while, even a life of living the “Girls Gone Wild” dream would become boring if it didn’t have some good old-fashioned pain to balance all the debauchery.

Pain and suffering, like most anything, is pure perspective. It’s like that old adage, “I was sad for the loss of my shoes until I met a man who had no feet.”

Sure, my head hurts every day. But at least I have a head.

Nothing gets me motivated like realizing there are people in the world who would literally kill for the opportunities I have right now.