Comparison is the Thief of Joy

One of the ways that the winter months impact me is the lack of daylight. It's not the cold, I grew up outside of New York City, and experienced real winters. I also lived for ten years in Chicago, and it's called the Windy City for good reasons. Wind chills there were the real thing. It's not the snow either, as I lived in Vermont for fifteen years, where I owned a snowblower and learned to ski as an adult!

It really is the lack of daylight. It's hard to go to work in the dark and leave in the dark. While there is brilliant light in every one of our school buildings, thanks to the tremendous faculty, staff, and students in East Greenwich Public Schools, we are seeing more and more darkness. That reality will continue until Saturday, December 21, 2024. That day has the shortest amount of daylight in the northern hemisphere. Just days after that, we will start seeing more light until the peak on Saturday, June 21, 2025. 

But I read something from The Washington Post (free article, with e-mail registration) in November that put all this into perspective. I read about the town of Utqiagvik, Alaska, located 330 miles north of the Arctic Circle. On Monday, November 18, at 1:27 PM, the sun set, and it won't rise again until January 22, 2025. For sixty-four days, residents will be essentially living at night. They will not see the sun for more than two months. There is not less and less sun, as we experience, but no sun. None. I don't know how I would feel about that. 

However, the article pointed out that the people who live in Utqiagvik will have the same amount of daylight as those of us in East Greenwich, Rhode Island. We all experience the same number of hours of sunlight over 365 days. How do I know this? Per the article, on May 11, 2025, those living in Utqiagvik will see the sun rise, and it won't set again until August 19! Honestly, I'm not sure how I would feel about that either. 

Sometimes it's about our perspective. Sometimes, it's how we think about another person. Sometimes, we have our blind spots. Sometimes, we can't see the whole picture. 

We are just coming off of the Thanksgiving Break, and whether it was a festive celebration or celebrated quietly, it is a time to be thankful. Thankful for what we have, even if we don't think it's much. Somewhere, someone else might not share that same perspective. Comparison really is the thief of joy because, in the end, we all get the same amount of sunlight.