which way?

my mind goes in a million directions at once. one minute i'm thinking about life and death, and the next i'm thinking about which movie i want to waste my time watching tonight. one second i'm thinking about the thousands upon thousands of dead and wounded in pakistan, and the next i'm feeling sorry for myself for missing that dang high b natural at my audition this week. where is the balance?
do i have problems? do they need addressing? are my trivial goings-on really worth anything? where is the line between self-involvement and self-preservation?
i wonder if we're really the ones who are on top of things. Christians in other countries who have never known creature comforts, who literally survive each day on spiritual food rather than on donuts and chicken patties and ketchup, are really the ones who have it together. they're the blessed ones, blessed because their spiritual wealth transcends any amount of paul mccartney concert tickets, tanks full of gas, or meals at taco john's.
they are blessed because material wealth is dispensible. it's tangible, easy to measure, easy to gain, easy to lose. spiritual wealth is something that can only be measured by God, this elusively mysterious entity -- not by the judgments of the masses. in order to see my real value, i have to somehow look through the eyes of something bigger than myself.

which is difficult, since i spend most of my days under the unadmitted impression that there IS nothing bigger than myself.