I have this lamp. It doesn’t work ‘on command’. I have to very carefully, very patiently… try to convince it to turn on. It takes more than a minute. More than two. Sometimes… more than five.

Just to turn on one light.

If I have a guest… or someone’s watching… I often feel embarrassed. Most of the time, eventually, it turns on. Sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes, after it has been on for a while… it unexpectedly shuts off.

And, you know, some people observing this would think I’m insane. ‘Get a new lamp!’ ‘What’s wrong with you and this lamp?’

But the lamp teaches me something.

That my expectations … my habit of expecting instant gratification… for whatever I can pay for… or am used to having ‘at my command’… might be … unhealthy for me.

In fact, they might be … crippling me… in ways I am habitually blind to.

I know, now, that when I go to the grocery store… there »might not be food there. When I shower, I feel gratitude. Because one day, »that water may be cold… or absent.

When I can walk, or see… or even breathe… I remember…

that my sense of entitlement to such unimaginable luxuries…

… must one day…

come…

… to a halt.

»All of them.

Forever.