Appreciation: Why it Should Be Impossible to Be Unhappy

Joe is turning sixteen. All he wants in life is to have a car. He’d give anything for it. Sarah, who has a car, has never had a boyfriend. She’s dying to have a boyfriend. Tracy has a boyfriend, and is about to have his baby. The kid was a mistake and she would do anything to turn back time and not conceive. Dale, who has no kids, just lost his job and desperately wants to make money. George, a billionaire, would give up his fortune to be young again, like Joe.

Right now there is someone who is going crazy wishing they could have something you have. Maybe it’s your full head of hair, maybe it’s your sneakers, or maybe it’s your knowledge of cartography.

In fact, at this very moment every single thing about you is probably being coveted by someone else. How can you possibly be upset about anything when you realize that your entire life is being wished for in little pieces by millions of people all around the world?

Appreciating things is a lot easier when you don’t have them anymore. I’m going on a cruise next week. I don’t even think of the meals, the destinations, the pools, or anything else that the other passengers are looking forward to.

I’m looking forward to the tap water.

At the moment I’m in the Dominican Republic now, where the tap water isn’t okay to drink. I can boil water, which makes it taste weird, or get water bottles. The grocery store isn’t all that close, and I’m only so strong, so I can only carry so much water at a time. The result is that I don’t drink quite enough. The thought of having a tap that has unlimited free water seems amazing.

I envy you because you probably have all the free clean water you want. I bet, like me two weeks ago, you never even considered how great it is to have drinkable tap water.

Think about the last time you had some sort of injury. You sprain your ankle, and only then do you realize how fantastic it is to have working, injury free, ankles.

There are an infinite amount of great things in your life. The trick is to appreciate them now while you still have them .

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There are 20 Comments.

Alex Shalman

Apr 14th, 2009 @ 7:23 am

A couple of years ago, I learned that in Judaism there is an appreciation prayer for nearly everything. For example, the moment a person wakes up, they are to go wash their hands and say a prayer in appreciation of waking up.

Then of course there are prayers for everything from being thankful for the food that you have in front of you to the eyes that you have that see.

So, I agree with you, appreciation is a powerful tool.

Anthony

Apr 14th, 2009 @ 7:26 am

Thanks for post. A book I often recommend to people is “The Science of Happiness”. It talks about the importance of what the author calls “The Expectation System” and wanting what you don’t have.

Also: Boiled water tastes weird because boiling removes dissolved oxygen. You can restore it by pouring the boiled water between two different containers a few times.

HTH,

Anthony

Mitch

Apr 14th, 2009 @ 7:33 am

simple thing wrapped in nice words.
genius

Glen Allsopp

Apr 14th, 2009 @ 8:53 am

Very well written Ty, and so true. Keep up the good work

Cheers,
Glen

stephanie

Apr 14th, 2009 @ 9:34 am

I don’t know if you drink a lot of water with ice, or if you are just limited to bottled water, but when I was in the DR, I lived by the mantra “Only ice with holes in it is safe!” (You know, the tube shaped ice.) So, I would be at a restaurant or a student’s house and my first thought when presented with a drink was to look at the ice.

I found it really hard to let go of that when I was back in the States… It took quite a few months for me not to have an internal “DON’T DRINK THAT!” when seeing water and with normally shaped ice cubes.

Enrique S

Apr 14th, 2009 @ 11:58 am

It’s funny how our “wants” seem ridiculous when our basic needs aren’t met. It really puts things in perspective when you can’t readily get safe drinking water. Stay well until you leave for your cruise.

Apr 14th, 2009 @ 12:15 pm

I’m sure this whole “someone covets what you have” is a lot easier for Tynan, whose entire life is coveted by pretty much every guy over age 30.

As for tap water, I live in America, and we don’t drink our tap water, either. We all have these white-capped jugs in the fridge that convert tap water into clean water.

No need to covet these, either, I’m sure you could get one, or have someone send you one.

As for people coveting each other, perhaps we should get them all together and they can swap.

The first thing I thought after reading about Joe and Sarah is that, gee, they ought to hook up.

As it was, when I was 16, I had neither car nor girlfriend. I’m just saying. I got good grades, but nobody coveted that. They were too busy partying. I coveted that.

Gmilit

Apr 14th, 2009 @ 1:36 pm

Tynan I think its the constant unhappiness that drives to create, innovate and improve ourselves. If everyone was completely satisfied with the way everything was all the time, we would still be living in caves thinking how great it is to have a cave rather than being out in the jungle/forest/tundra ect. I am glad I have the pain and imperfections and constant coveting of other peoples stuff, as it will constantly cause me to strive to better myself and become a better human.

Tynan

Apr 14th, 2009 @ 2:02 pm

@Gmilit – I’ve thought about that, too, and it’s a good point. I don’t think that you need to be unhappy about where you are, just excited about improvement.

Tynan

blank

Apr 14th, 2009 @ 4:16 pm

I rolled my ankle yesterday playing basketball. There is a hike I really want to go on coming up this weekend. I am envious of everyone with good ankles.

Good post.

Cassius

Apr 14th, 2009 @ 6:49 pm

I was in a car accident today. The other driver and I are fine, but both cars were totaled. It never really hit me until I went to my grandpa’s house this evening and saw his two motorcycles… one is his, and one will be mine whenever we get around to fixing it up. As I looked at it, I thought about how I could have just as easily died today. Then, I thought about how I can’t live my life in fear thinking about how I could have died each day.

Your last paragraph of this post said it all. Thanks, Ty.

-Cassius

Kevin

Apr 14th, 2009 @ 8:09 pm

Anthony interesting fact about boiled water I didn’t know that.

I did a project for about a month during the weekdays where I listed 10 things I was thankful for and I was not allowed to repeat any ideas. It was an awesome experiment that increased my feeling of abundance.

Brian Armstrong

Apr 15th, 2009 @ 1:13 pm

Awesome post!

Zach

Apr 16th, 2009 @ 9:03 pm

Tynan, since you’re good friends with Tyler D. I’m sure you’ve stumbled upon ‘The Blueprint’. In it, he talks about feeling good at the core. How to shift your thinking and concentration inwards so that you’re no longer thinking about what your needs and desires are, but just letting everything be and appreciating the moment. Even if the moment isn’t all that great, just the fact that we have such a wonderful world around us and that you’ll most likely get over what ever it is that is a hardship currently. I’m not sure if you’ve heard or read the Blueprint, but if you could expound on the idea of feeling good and being confident no matter the situation. Core confidence over situational. And un-conditional happiness. If you’re having trouble thinking of what to write, I always enjoy the philosophical lessons people get out of everyday events. =)

Tynan

Apr 17th, 2009 @ 2:03 am

Zach:

Yep… I watched the Blueprint and loved it. I’ll keep that in mind for future blog posts. Thanks for the suggestion!

Tynan

cheekysmile

Apr 22nd, 2009 @ 4:11 pm

You are so right… people always want what we can’t/don’t have… so we never feel happy..
If we just simple appreciate what we have in hands, we feel happy easier..For example, I love my morning coffee… not that I like drinking coffee but I like that peaceful time while I am drinking and some cool breeze..

ashlee

Apr 23rd, 2009 @ 2:33 am

Gratitude is everything when it comes to happiness.

Eric

Apr 24th, 2009 @ 2:00 pm

Reminds me of the book “Stumbling on Happiness” by Daniel Gilbert. zeFrank did a vlog on the book a few years ago, which is how I found it.

http://www.zefrank.com/theshow/archives/2006/09/092106.html

Scott

Apr 28th, 2009 @ 3:36 am

Thanks for this post!

Ruby

Mar 4th, 2010 @ 2:20 pm

I actually had a similar experience with drinking fountains. I’m used to a desert climate, and when I went to college I was amazed that there were drinking fountains just sitting around everywhere. I think on my first day I stopped to take a drink from each one. ;D

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Appreciation: Why it Should Be Impossible to Be Unhappy

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