Grandmother's Story Entry (2011 edition)

Every year Grandmother Thackeray challenges all of her grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and those adopted into her posterity through marriage, to write a "story" for her book that gets published every year. The themes are all different and vary from "Your Best Day" to "There is nothing noble in being superior to some other person. The true nobility is in being superior to your previous self."

This year will mark my 13th year writing stories for Grandmother's books and I've really enjoyed participating. It's a fun challenge that has evolved into a meaningful tradition. One that I hope continues long past Grandmother's mortal life. This year's (paraphrased) theme was "We need to be happy with what we have, rather than what we do not have". It's a good reminder. Here's my submission:

We Could Learn A Lot From The Sneetches
By, Heidi Lynn Thackeray
Is it just me or is Dr. Suess a pretty cleaver guy? I mean, who better to teach us about being happy with what we have than a children’s author? And the story of the Sneetches draws the perfect comparison.
“Now, the Star-bellied Sneetches had bellies with stars. The Plain-bellied Sneetches had none upon thars. The stars weren’t so big; they were really quite small. You would think such a thing wouldn’t matter at all. But because they had stars, all the Star-bellied Sneetches would brag, “We’re the best kind of Sneetches on the beaches.” “Then one day, it seems, while the Plain-bellied Sneetches were moping, just moping alone on the beaches, sitting there, wishing their bellies had stars, up zipped a stranger in the strangest of cars.”
And as it turns out, this stranger proposed to solve all of the plain-bellied Sneetches’ problems by adding stars to their bellies… for a small fee of course. And soon, they were all the same.
“Good grief!” groaned the one who had stars from the first. “We’re still the best Sneetches, and they are the worst. But how in the world will we know,” they all frowned, “if which kind is what or the other way ‘round?”
Before long, the Sneetches were so caught up in trying to be the best, that they spent all of their money “changing their stars every minute or two, until neither the Plain – nor the Star-bellies knew whether this one was that one or what one was who!”
Luckily in the end, those Sneetches learned their lesson that “Sneetches are Sneetches and no kind of Sneetch is the BEST on the beaches.”
How often are we like the Sneetches? Focusing on what we do NOT have and doing anything to get it rather than being grateful for what we DO have? How much happier we would be if we lived in gratitude each day? If we chose to be happy with our home, our cars, our clothes, our income, our neighborhood, ourselves, rather than living in discontentment and constantly comparing ourselves to others? I’ll bet we’d be more productive; more service oriented, more selfless, more at peace.
It’s an important lesson we learn from the Sneetches. To forget about what we don’t have and focus on what we do. President Thomas S. Monson said, “We can lift ourselves, and others as well, when we refuse to remain in the realm of negative thought and cultivate within our hearts an attitude of gratitude.”
I mean if the Sneetches can do it, why can’t we?