Appreciation

Today I want to talk about appreciation. In the last post I talked about complaining and what we can do about it. I mentioned appreciating the things we have in our life, and I want to expand on that. Appreciating things we have seems to be difficult for us. Why is this? Usually we just don't think about the things we have. We have an expectation that the things we have will be there. We get used to the things we own and we forget about them. A way to avoid this mindset is to remind yourself of the stuff you have. This sounds really obvious, but people don't do it. People don't appreciate things because they think what they have is not enough. People always want more and more stuff. I think this is driven by a similar desire that we have for entertainment (see post on entertainment). We always crave the newest technology, clothes, car, or whatever. We seem to never have enough. So what can we do about this? Again, we have to look back at the things we have, and just appreciate them. Remind yourself that not everyone in the world has the things you have. We also have to accept that no matter what we have we will never have enough. We will always have a desire for more and more things but we will never truly be satisfied. This is a hard concept to grasp, but once we accept that getting new things won't satisfy us we can live a little easier. Appreciating things doesn't only go for material things though. We also have trouble appreciating ourselves or others. We always get jealous of other people and what they can do or how tall they are or how good-looking they are. When we keep looking at what other people have we forget what we have and only focus on what we don't have. Comparisons make us feel insecure, jealous, and unappreciative. We need to stop comparing ourselves to other people and learn to appreciate ourselves. I'm reminded of a story of a man. This man lived a fairly normal life, but then somehow became blind. He began to complain about the things he could no longer do to his friend. He could no longer watch TV, play sports, read, text, or do many things a normal person could. When his friend saw he was feeling depressed, he told the man to make a list of the things he could still do. The man had a huge list, with things like eat, listen to music, and lots more. He began feeling a lot better about his life and was able to cope with his situation better. What's the point? It's pretty obvious. Once we begin to appreciate the things we have and the things we can do, our attitude on life changes. We begin to feel better about ourselves and are able to see the positive side of life rather than the negative (see post on optimism). Learn to appreciate what you have.  
-Smart