You’re back at your desk, or maybe like me, back in your house, starting the yawning mouths of 7 suitcases in the zipper. The urge is strong: to flee out the door and escape back into vacation (or as the Europeans call it “holiday”) land where food is always hot and laundry clean.

But your leave is all used up and over 1000 unread emails clutter your Inbox (that’s if you could tear yourself away while on planes, trains, and automobiles).

How can you cope? Here are 4 easy steps.

4: Syria

That’s right, think of all the people who have been displaced since the civil war began three years ago. Not mention the dead which are estimated at 120,000 as of Sept. 2013. Remember them when you’re getting into bed, worried about the commute tomorrow.

3: Iraq

It’s not pretty, the way militants are targeting minority groups in the north, seemingly unchecked, bringing brutality, beheadings, and mass graves in their wake. Thousands have been displaced, fleeing in terror.

2: Gaza

The images of the three weeks of shelling in one of the world’s most densely populated areas have been graphic and included hundreds of children among other fatalities and injuries.

1: Ebola

If we humans aren’t hell bent on getting rid of each other, a deadly virus may help us along the way. Like in the movies, this recurrent, contagious virus is experiencing an outbreak in Western Africa.

I don’t mean for this to be a “eat your peas, children in China are starving” kind of solution. That sort of logic probably didn’t work for you as child and doesn’t help to think it could always be worse as an adult.

What I did was use this list in helping a friend return to the sandbox. And also myself. My problems, needing a new computer, wanting more sleep, hoping for the heat to decrease, are my problems. I am thankful for them. Because God probably knows I couldn’t handle those of others.

How do you recover from vacation? A healthy dose of perspective or mostly sleeping pills?