We Take It For Granted Until It’s Being Taken Away

There are so many things in life that we’ve come to accept as normal and take for granted. Circumstances related to our well-being and safety, our health and wellness, our access to resources, our mental faculties… All blessings that we've come to know to be a part of our everyday life.

And we don’t realize that we’re taking these things for granted until we encounter a situation where we see the consequence of not having it. It takes a moment of awareness and perspective to realize how good we have it, and this comes in two different ways:

When something gets taken away from us, or when we see that someone else doesn’t have what we effortlessly enjoy.

We don’t realize how lucky we are to have a healthy family until someone in our family becomes unhealthy, or we hear about a health issue or tragedy in someone else’s family…

We don’t realize how lucky we are that we have the capacity to walk until we get injured and need to get around on crutches, someone near you gets injured and you see them debilitated, or you see someone on the street in a wheelchair with a permanent disability…

We take for granted a nice warm shower until our water is shut off for a day, or we visit a part of the world where they don’t have the infrastructure to take daily showers.

I remember coming back from my first time in Mexico for a house build impact project. I was so deeply grateful for my shower at home - something I’d never thought to appreciate.

We had showers where we stayed, but the water was dirty so you had to be careful to not open your mouth, and it only got to lukewarm temperature. Not to forget the family we were building the home for, they were living on dirt surrounded by flies and feces in very unsanitary conditions.

So many layers of gratitude which came from so many layers of awareness. 

We take it for granted until it’s being taken from us or we see it being taken away from someone else. It shifts perspective and makes us realize how good we have it. That’s why I’m such a huge proponent for gratitude journaling. Literally taking the time to pause and see the goodness in your life helps you realize how abundant it is, and how lucky you are to have it.