tanhaTaken for Granted!
December 12th 2006 03:45
What are you taking for granted?
Where I live we are having the driest year on record just about. The whole city is on rations for water. We’ve always had plenty of water, green gardens on automatic sprinkler systems throughout long, hot summers, Not so now. Many people have given up watering lawns altogether. We are limited to hand or drip watering at certain times of the day and week only. Cars may not be washed with a hose – use your bucket. Collect the washing machine water and bucket it out to the fruit trees. Use the right nozzle on your hose so it turns off when not compressed. We’ve had little rain all winter and the levels in the dams are less than half the usual quantity. Great care is needed. The whole city is beginning to appreciate the great value of water.
So I wonder what else I am taking for granted – my comfortable home and colourful garden and pets, the great variety of healthy food here, freedom to say what I think, a busy life with plenty to do, family, birds (my boarder doesn’t have birds in his home city!), a peaceful lifestyle, a rich culture, certain friendships, God Himself who loves me beyond measure, (yes, He does, believe it or not!), hobbies, a million books to read, beautiful places to visit, opportunities to do good things, interesting things.,. Surely this is enough to keep me happy and laughing for a lifetime!
Yet I consider people who have none of these things. What makes me so fortunate? Nothing I did! That’s for sure. I don’t deserve these privileges any more than they do – in fact I’ve probably abused them and therefore deserve them much less on that account.
Now my sense of justice kicks in. I actually owe them something – some of my own good fortune. Finding the means of sharing my privileges is the one way I can truly appreciate them.
It is interesting that I can learn to appreciate things in a community setting, but if I take them for granted I isolate myself from community in order to do that. Danger signals flashing! Isolation is not ideal!, not great psychology! Appreciation and justice go hand in hand with community. See how appreciation awakens and sharpens the mind. We don’t have rights. Narrow-minded, self-centred people have rights. We have privileges. We owe these to people who have, through their sense of justice and community, worked for and won them for us. The more we give thanks for, and share them, the better we’ll enjoy them!
Where I live we are having the driest year on record just about. The whole city is on rations for water. We’ve always had plenty of water, green gardens on automatic sprinkler systems throughout long, hot summers, Not so now. Many people have given up watering lawns altogether. We are limited to hand or drip watering at certain times of the day and week only. Cars may not be washed with a hose – use your bucket. Collect the washing machine water and bucket it out to the fruit trees. Use the right nozzle on your hose so it turns off when not compressed. We’ve had little rain all winter and the levels in the dams are less than half the usual quantity. Great care is needed. The whole city is beginning to appreciate the great value of water.
So I wonder what else I am taking for granted – my comfortable home and colourful garden and pets, the great variety of healthy food here, freedom to say what I think, a busy life with plenty to do, family, birds (my boarder doesn’t have birds in his home city!), a peaceful lifestyle, a rich culture, certain friendships, God Himself who loves me beyond measure, (yes, He does, believe it or not!), hobbies, a million books to read, beautiful places to visit, opportunities to do good things, interesting things.,. Surely this is enough to keep me happy and laughing for a lifetime!
Yet I consider people who have none of these things. What makes me so fortunate? Nothing I did! That’s for sure. I don’t deserve these privileges any more than they do – in fact I’ve probably abused them and therefore deserve them much less on that account.
Now my sense of justice kicks in. I actually owe them something – some of my own good fortune. Finding the means of sharing my privileges is the one way I can truly appreciate them.
It is interesting that I can learn to appreciate things in a community setting, but if I take them for granted I isolate myself from community in order to do that. Danger signals flashing! Isolation is not ideal!, not great psychology! Appreciation and justice go hand in hand with community. See how appreciation awakens and sharpens the mind. We don’t have rights. Narrow-minded, self-centred people have rights. We have privileges. We owe these to people who have, through their sense of justice and community, worked for and won them for us. The more we give thanks for, and share them, the better we’ll enjoy them!
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