While
rioting against the capitalist system, young people want to destroy the society
which gives all of us necessities like clean water, plenty of good and affordable
food, and shelter. They burn and loot the neighborhoods of poor people, often destroying
their ability to feed and shelter their families. Electricity, heating, and hot
water are things that these rioters take for granted and do not think about the
consequences of having to survive without them.
People take
for granted the ability to walk, to run, to swim, to exercise, to breathe
without oxygen or medication. They are gifts that we never appreciate enough.
Nor do we appreciate good health until it’s strained or endangered.
We take for
granted friends, families, and loved ones. We have less time to spend with them
and, when their support and companionship are gone, we realize how much we have
lost because we were too busy to make time. We take for granted daily comforts
and the small joys of life as if they will exist forever.
We never appreciate
the freedom to make choices, to pursue an education, to travel, to have a job
because we do not know how other people in the world live or whether they have
the simplest joy of drinking clean water and having a place to sleep without
the danger of being robbed by humans or attacked by wild animals.
We take for
granted that our environment is safe and, when natural disasters strike, we are
saddened by fear and loss, by the sudden destruction of what we used to call
safe. We realized at that moment that the threat of natural disasters was not
part of our lives, but it existed, nevertheless. People in Venezuela were struck by two back-to-back
earthquakes, and their lives became a nightmare. They thought Mother Nature
would always be placid.
A near miss
on the road and a close brush with a dangerous animal in the ocean or in the
wilderness leaves us with a reeling horror because we took our lives and safety
for granted.
Simple
pleasures like feeling the warmth of sunlight, hearing the chirping of birds in
the woods, watching the cotton clouds move in the blue sky, having a cup of tea
on the porch on a frosty morning are often ignored in the rush of life.
We take for
granted the ability to shower, to stand without feeling vertigo, to
dress comfortably in clean clothes folded nicely in a drawer, smelling like
soap and the summer wind.
Taking
things for granted is part of life but we should stop and reconsider before it’s
too late.
