I'm sure you've heard the old saying "You don't know what you've got until it's gone", well there is definitely some truth in this statement, but I would like to take a little time and talk about the idea in a little bit more complexity, in the hopes of making you appreciate something a little bit more today.
Complacency breeds dissatisfaction. When we have something in our lives that feels stable, we generally start taking it for granted. This happens with basic necessities of life such as food and water for example. We take it for granted than whenever we turn the faucet head that cold water will come out for us to drink. We take it for granted that when we are hungry we can take a short trip to a grocery store and find a vast plethora of food for us to choose from and then store for long periods of time at our own home. Can you imagine if all of a sudden this were not the case? If we woke up one morning and needed some water but none came out when we were thirsty? What if we needed food but the shelves were all bare? We would long for the days when it was so readily available.
The same is true with our relationships with other people. If there is someone in our life who we see on a daily basis, whether it be a family member, a loved one, a best friend, or whoever else, we start to take that person for granted. Why should we be happy and thankful to see them when they are always there? What's so special about that when it is going to happen again and again and again? Well, when we loose someone, it becomes clear as to how special that really is. When we no longer have the ability to see the face of someone who we once were so accustomed to, many of us would do anything to get that back.
This carries through to so many things in our lives. Our health, our finances, our job, our safety, our stability, and so on and so fourth. We take things for granted because we become accustomed to their relative "stability". We even grow dissatisfied with them and long for something else, something different, something more, when in reality we would be heartbroken in many cases if we lost those things.
The thing I found most astonishing is the disassociation people have from nature, and how much they take it for granted. The beautiful complexity of nature that provides us with our lives and everything we cherish in them. But there are so many people that go through their day to day lives without noticing the beauty in it. Without taking sometime to spend in the woods, swimming or taking a boat out on a lake, camping, gardening or simply taking a walk outside and being mindful of the trees, the sky, the flowers and the breeze. To me, the most awe inspiring creation of man could never be as beautiful and captivating as a walk through the woods and I try to catch myself whenever I start taking that beauty for granted, and then take the time to fall in love with it all over again.
Everything in this world can be lost, easily. The fact that it can be is what makes us love what we have, but we need to be reminded now and again that we can loose them and so we need to take the time to appreciate what we have. Mindfulness leads to thankfulness. So take a little time out of your day to think about something you have grown a little more accustomed to than you should and show it some thankfulness, for it won't be around forever.
In the next post, I'm going to expand on this idea more in relation to the Taoist idea of Yin and Yang.
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