Skip to content

April 10, 2010

2

Are you fully appreciating your life?

As humans, it is impressively easy to take things for granted. Just look at these few examples:

- Food: Go to the store, buy, eat. Repeat. No questioning where it comes from, what’s in there, how is it fueling your body, will there still be more of it next week. Nah. It’s food, tastes good. Ever heard of that question asked to a kid, “Where do eggs come from”? He answered “the grocery store”. Yep, they magically appear there.

- Technology: What were you doing fifteen years ago? If I wagered a guess here, I’d say you weren’t spending hours per day on the internet. Now it’s everywhere and part of pretty much everyone’s life. It actually feels abnormal not to have it around. That is true with most tech pieces older than 6 months. OK maybe a year. Sometimes. And the iPhone doesn’t count.

- Fitness: Surely you’ve heard of amazing athletes. So amazing they could fly, or lift the Everest or something. Yet at some point in their life it seems they lose their edge, or worse, they regress. There are countless examples of people (not only athletes) that were slim, or fit and strong, and with time they get lazy, which eventually makes them out of shape.

And no, it’s not because they’re old. Otherwise this woman wouldn’t dance salsa and this man wouldn’t have that grace and quickness.

Impressive. I mean, it is! How can we lose track and attention to so meaningful parts of our lives?

Look at your situation. Consider the things you own (Josh Hanagarne has written an excellent post on ownership). Think of the pieces of story you’re living daily.

Some of these things might be good / positive, while others definitely feel negative. Sorry, let me rephrase that.

Some of these things are undoubtedly good. Are you fully appreciating them? Do you realize their full impact on your life? How are you taking care of them?

Other things might feel negative. However life has this cool way of making you always grow stronger out of obstacles. Isn’t growth what makes life worth living?

So, how do you face obstacles?

Are you fully appreciating your life?

Read more from Main, Philosophical
, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
  • http://olussier.net Olivier

    Excellent post!

    About our tendency to take things for granted, I strongly agree. Many people take for granted everything they have and never take the time to think about what and who they owe it to.

    Let me use your 3 examples:

    When was the last time you ate a good meal and thought about how food is not only nutritious but incredibly varied in color, shape, texture, smell and taste? Have you ever thought about who made all of this?

    When was the last time you surfed the Internet on your mobile and thought about all the electronics interacting together that made this possible? What about all the people who spent years researching to end up with these electronics? And what about the hundreds of physical laws that make all of this possible? Laws are written, have you ever thought about who wrote those laws?

    When was the last time you were doing your favorite sport and thought about the marvelous mechanisms going on in your body to let you move with power, speed and precision, interacting with other people just as marvelously made as you are? Have you ever thought about who designed this masterpiece?

  • cougarblanc

    Bravo ! Belle prise de conscience ; il est essentiel d'apprécier ce que l'on a. La Vie est belle, simple et merveilleuse !