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Speak Up

A man was overheard in a service station recently chiding those who complain about the rising cost of gas.

Enlarge Photo

"Get used to it," he said. "It is what it is and there's no use complaining about it" — sage advice, as far as it goes.

After all, the pundits have been warning for a long time now we were going to see steep gas-price increases as a result of skyrocketing oil prices, citing, among other things, an increasingly sharp rise in demand in burgeoning India and China, on the one hand, but no corresponding rise in the supply of oil because of ongoing wars and strife, not to mention intransigent middle-east oil producers' policies, on the other.

In this particular case, we can't even say, "If only we had done something, we could have prevented this," there being little we can do to influence the price of gas – with the possible exception of pressuring the provincial government to further reduce fuel taxes.

So, yes, we are stuck with the high price of gas, and really there is nothing to be gained by complaining about it.

That point was brought home even more vividly when we received the cartoon you see to the right.

Recent natural disasters in China and Burma (or Myanmar as the generals would have the country called) make our gas-price disaster seem truly petty by comparison, particularly the horrific situation in Burma resulting from the ruling generals' hindering international aid workers in their efforts to do their job.

Of course, if we harken back just a few short years, we don't have to look as far afield to find equally harrowing examples of disaster closer to home: Hurricane Katrina wreaked its devastation less than three years ago; and then there was the horror of 9/11 less than seven short years ago in 2001. Closer to home on a more individual scale, there are many here on the Miramichi right now who struggle with illness or drug addiction or poverty: their own personal disasters of truly harrowing proportions.

The point we're making here — and the point the cartoon makes — is that it doesn't hurt once in a while to stop for a moment and put things into perspective so that we can appreciate anew all the good things we do have in this blessed part of the world — gas-price and other warts ‘n all — in which we have the good fortune to be living out our lives.

So as we look forward to the coming summer, having just celebrated the long weekend that heralds its start, it's not a bad idea to stop a moment and remember just how fortunate we really are compared to so many others.