You're Actually Doing Better Than Most People Right Now If These 10 Things Are True For You
AdriaticFoto | ShutterstockIt seems like everyone I know has a lot on their metaphorical plates. We are working more than ever, have intense family obligations and pretty much everything else feels heavy. As a result, it's easy to lose track of ways we're actually doing better than most people right now.
Gratitude is one of the easiest and most effective practices for helping ease depression, anxiety and stress, but it's also easy to lose track of. Society places ads and images everywhere to remind us what we don't have, whether those are things we can buy or lifestyles that feel inaccessible. But we don't have to let that negativity overtake us, and we can start by looking at the ways in which many of us are very fortunate.
You're actually doing better than most people right now if these 10 things are true for you
1. You have a roof over your head
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If you have a place to call home and a space to gather with a community, you have a foundation to grow, heal, and maintain your health.
According to United Nations statistics, there are more than 1.6 billion people in the world residing in unstable, unsafe, or poor housing conditions, with nearly 15 million forcefully evicted each year. This statistic isn't designed to make you feel bad, but rather to remind you of this simple good fortune.
Acknowledging the safety of shelter is important, as not everyone has this luxury, but don’t forget to give yourself grace with everything else you struggle with.
We live in a contemporary world where these basic necessities are often given and received without a second thought. It’s the more hard-hitting problems, societal issues, and personal struggles that tend to directly influence our lives. Both matter, so make space for gratitude while also acknowledging how those big issues affect you. That’s where real growth and self-awareness happen.
2. You have clean water
According to 2025 World Health Organization stats, 1 in 4 people around the world do not have access to safe drinking water. That's 2.1 billion people globally who struggle to find drinkable water or who drink directly from untreated surface water sources.
While this may seem like a problem solely in the developing world, around 2.2 million people in the United States who do not have running water or basic plumbing in their homes. According to the CDC Foundation, this is a problem that keeps growing.
“When children lack access to safe water, sanitation, and hygiene, their health, education, and futures are put at risk,” said Cecilia Scharp, UNICEF Director of WASH.
Of course, recognizing this is difficult. These statistics are not a guilt trip or a means to make you feel bad about yourself — it’s just the reality of our world.
So many of us have access to things like clean water every day, and we forget to give it a second thought. Next time you wash your hands, fill a kettle for tea, or just indulge in a hot shower, take a moment to realize what a beautiful gift it is.
3. You have a kind heart
Of course, there’s more to life than pure survival. Kindness, grace, and happiness make our human experience unique. We cherish interaction, love, and relationships with other people. We yearn for connection.
If you’ve shown any form of selflessness, whether to your kids, your spouse, or a stranger on the street, you’re doing well. If you’ve sacrificed some of your time, energy, or money, something almost all of us struggling with in our current world, you’re contributing to a better reality.
If you’re finding it difficult to feel gratitude in your life or are going through a hard time right now, consider opening yourself up to the world of kindness. Give a stranger a compliment, help out your neighbor with their groceries, or carve out extra time to spend with your kids.
This kindness and pure social interaction have been proven to help us feel better and, in turn, cultivate a more rewarding life.
4. You are growing your goodness as a human
If you're able to self-reflect, you're leagues ahead of many others. Self-reflection is the process of honestly looking at yourself, your interactions, your feelings and your choices and deciding if these things are helpful or harmful to you, others and your goals.
Upon reflection, when you see an area of yourself where you feel you need to grow or make changes, you acknowledge it and start the process of self-improvement. This may seem simple and obvious on the surface, but this is actually a very special quality to have, and it takes practice to become good at it.
If you didn't have this ability, you'd be one of those people who feels like a victim in life, even when they're the one who is causing problems. We all know someone who seems to constantly start drama with friends, and then presents the problem as if something terrible happened to them. Similarly, there's always that one person who is rude and self-obsessed and doesn't understand why people don't seem to want to spend time with them.
If you're able to self-reflect, you are actually doing better than most people, so take advantage of it and keep empowering yourself during these tough times.
5. You ate something nourishing today
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Millions, if not billions, of people in the world struggle with food insecurity, including in the USA and Canada. Whether due to locational or geographical access to healthy, safe foods or simply financial barriers, people still struggle to feed themselves and their kids.
Of course, being grateful for access to healthy, safe, and nutritious food isn’t the only guardrail for measuring “doing well” in life. Having access to shelter, food and water should be universally accepted as a basic necessity, one that humanity would not let another person go without.
In addition, especially in Western culture, narratives around eating are particularly unhealthy and can feed into a toxic lifestyle when perpetuated often.
If you’ve given your body nutritious foods today and listened to your body, that’s absolutely a win, no matter how difficult it was. This is a reminder that, even on your worst days, eating a meal and fueling your body is a sign of success.
6. Someone in your life cares about you
When we’re a part of something, whether it's a community or a friendship, we learn more about ourselves. Not only does the the support and connection help our mental health (and may even prolong your life!), it creates the potential for more fulfillment.
So, if you have a friend, a loved one, a church or temple or mosque, a school, or a community that provides a sense of safety, comfort, or support in your life, you’re doing well. If you’re going through a difficult time, use those people to your advantage, talk with them, invite them to go out, or even just give them a compliment. Then do the same for them when they need it.
These people in our circles are essential to the life we create for ourselves, so we need to remind ourselves to be grateful for them and don’t take them for granted. Not everyone has the luxury of companionship or friendship in their lives, no matter what the reason.
7. You have clean clothes
Laundry, clean clothes, and access to washing machines are tiny indulgences in life that many people take for granted. As we noted above, millions of people even in the USA don't have running water or plumbing in their homes, let alone easy access to a washer or dryer.
If you have access to clean clothes and the ability to wash and dry them easily, at home or at a laundromat you can afford, you’re doing well. With clean clothes, you’d be surprised at how many opportunities open for you, like agreat job opportunity or a kind social interaction with a stranger.
8. You have access to nature
Even if you live in a big city, if you can make it to a park, local lake or beach, public gardens or arboretum, you have a gift at your hands. Our natural world is a total gift, and not everyone has access to green spaces or open water.
Research shows that spending at least two hours per week has benefits for your health, both physical and emotional. A UCLA Health report says it enhances cognition, reduces stress, increases the quality of your sleep, and even can help your heart health. That's a lot of benefit for a relatively small amount of time.
Unfortunately, not everyone has a relatively simple way to access nature. According to the Colcom Foundation, there is a global nature deprivation problem, even in the USA, where they estimate 100 million people don't have access to nature within a 10-minute walk. They connect this to an increased risk of anxiety and depression in areas, writing, "People living in low tree density neighborhoods are 30% more likely to need anti-depressants than those in high tree density neighborhoods."
9. You have hope
Hope is one of the most powerful forces in the world. It's not something we can buy or even achieve, but it is something we can share with others.
Hope allows us to imagine something better in the future, so that when something bad happens, we don't feel trapped by it.
If you feel like you're lacking in hope right now, remember that it can be a struggle to find it, sometimes. One of the major features of clinical depression is hopelessness, after all. Fortunately, it is something you can cultivate (even if that means starting out with support from others, including qualified professionals).
One simple way to start cultivating hope is to keep a simple gratitude journal. Write down 3 to 5 things you feel positive about every morning, and 3 to 5 things you're hopeful about before bed. This seems like a tiny thing, but it can change your life more than you can imagine, if given time.
10. You’re breathing
Lastly, everyone has something to be grateful for. If you’re alive and breathing, you've been given a gift.
You can have have an opportunity grow and heal, to help yourself and help others. So don’t give up on yourself and your future by letting inconvenience, stress, and anxiety get the best of you.
Remember that we all deserve to live our lives to the fullest, so don’t let your ego sabotage you into thinking you’ve got nothing to be grateful for. You’re doing a good job. Hang in there.
Zayda Slabbekoorn is a news and entertainment writer at YourTango, focusing on pop culture and human interest stories.
