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Appreciate What You Already Have

Hello and happy Saturday to my loyal (and new) readers. Today I’ll be waxing poetically about the joys of appreciating what you already have. Too often we all sit around thinking “I wish I had a new car. I wish I had that computer. I wish I could go on a trip. I wish…” instead of thinking “I’m quite grateful I have…”

When we appreciate what we have, we take a lot of frustrations and anguish out of our lives. Instead of longing for what we want, pining over what we don’t have, we can actually go out and enjoy life. This holds true for both material items and for the intangibles in life.

I just recently became guilty of this myself and I must say I’m a bit ashamed to admit this. I’m usually the guy that’s happy with what I have, who I have in my life, what I can do with what I already have and how I don’t spend too much time “wishing”, yet there I was doing just that. When I first moved from Santa Cruz, California to Atlanta, Georgia I complained a lot. Too hot in the summer, too cold in the winter, no good mountain biking or road biking, traffic blows, the ocean isn’t here, the mountains don’t compare, cost of living is higher here (who would have thought?) and the list continued. After finally getting over all that I realized “huh, wait a minute. I’m playing a lot more soccer here than I did when I lived in Santa Cruz. I’m much more involved in the music scene here in Atlanta. I’ve got this, I’ve got that…” and I was happy.

Just recently I started spending a lot more time in a different part of town in Atlanta. Again…it didn’t have everything that I enjoyed about the part of town that I have my apartment. I once again started complaining that I couldn’t walk here, I couldn’t visit that friend, I’m missing out on this event because of that part of town…frustrating! I finally realized what I was doing and started changing my outlook to “well I can do this over here, I can do that…” and things are better.

Times are tough for a lot of people right now. Instead of thinking about what we had and lost, of what we want and don’t have, we should look at what we already have and embrace it. Enjoy it. Have a great boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/wife? Be happy for that. Have your health? Awesome. Go for a walk and enjoy the outdoors. Have good friends that you can laugh with? Cool…go out and laugh with them.

It doesn’t matter where on this planet we live. We all have things in our lives that we can appreciate. Let us all enjoy our current spoils in life and live life to the fullest with what we’ve already got.

One Response to “Appreciate What You Already Have”

  1. jsargent says:

    Well said! Something we definitely all need to remember. One of my favorite quotes and reminders on my vision board -“Kiss your life. Accept it, just as it is. Today. Now. So that those moments of happiness you’re waiting for don’t pass you by.”