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 .