Suppose the stars only appeared once every thousand years--or even once every fifty years. What an amazing sight it would be! People around the world would stand spellbound and gaze at the sky with awe. Imagine the thrill of seeing such a sight for the first time!

Are the stars any less spectacular just because they shine every night? Do we take them for granted only because they are always there?  What about other things?  Suppose that flowers only bloomed once every five years, or that the sun shone only once a week? Would we appreciate these things more than we now do?  If so, isn't it a shame that we can only know the value of things when we are deprived of them?  

We are all so much richer than we realize.  Most of us have more reasons to be happy than we will ever know, because it is only when we lose sources of happiness that we recognize them for what they are. In the words of Maxin Gorky, "Happiness always looks small while you hold it in your hands, but let it go, and you learn at once how big and how precious it is."

Most of us would have no difficulty making a list of all the things we don't have.  We spend a lot of time thinking about that.  But suppose we were asked to make a list of all the things we already have that we wouldn't want to lose. Could we quickly make such a list? Or would most of us leave many things off the list--things that are very precious to us--simply because we take these things for granted? Perhaps we should spend some time thinking about what we already have that we would not want to give up.  If we thought long and hard on the subject, and actually made a list of everything that we currently have that we would not want to lose, how long would that list be?

We don't like to be told that we should count our blessings, or that we have more reasons to be happy than we realize. We are too busy focusing on what we don't have to be very conscious of the many things we do have.  Since we will never have everything we want, if we are to be happy, we must learn to appreciate the value of what we have. And this includes the many things we all have in common such as the gifts of nature, friendship, and just being alive.  Is it possible that if we took a careful inventory we would find that we have more reasons to be happy than we realize? 

Copyright 2014 Allen W. Smith

TB-73—Posted 06/11/2014