The term, take for granted, relates to when a person 'doesn't fully appreciate something or someone in their life' and I believe all of us are or have been guilty of it.

In my #weekend-engagement topics I've added one around taking things for granted and I felt inclined to add my own response, something I very rarely do. If you're so inclined you can check out the topics post by following this link.

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My life has been interesting, a collection of many experiences, thoughts, emotions and things, of highs and lows, success, failure, massive effort and action and moments of inaction also...It's been special in my opinion; more special than anyone else's? I'm not sure as I've never lived any one else's life. It's been a good one though and I've learned many lessons and one of the most valuable has been the ethos of never taking what I have or have around me for granted - That translates to being respectful of myself, others, the material items I have and to feel and show gratitude for them. I think I've done a good job. However, looking back...yes, I've taken things for granted.

Sleep

I can recall sleeping so soundly and restfully back in the day and never feeling any gratitude for that sleep.

Now...I'm lucky to get five hours of sleep a night and that's often broken sleep meaning I wake up two or three times then struggle to get back to sleep. Why? I'm not willing to go into it here as most of you won't understand, some won't care and others may want to give me unsolicited advice on the manner which I don't need. Sometimes I get a good sleep though, it's splendid and very welcome (if rare) when it happens and nope, I do not take it for granted any more.

My grandfather

This is one of my biggest regrets, that I didn't spend more time with him before he died and took for granted that he was there.

He died when I was about eighteen and I'd lived my whole life with him around because he and my nana lived with us in the homestead my family owned. We did things together, spent time, but over my childhood and youth I had so many things tugging me here and there that I didn't spend as much time as I (now looking back) would have liked. This situation causes me to treasure the memories I have of course, but I took for granted that he'd always be there back then and I look upon it now as having taken him for granted generally. It makes me sad.

Health

I remember being able to run through walls (not always literally), to recover quickly from injuries or wounds, to have immense physical strength and endurance and the ability to sustain a high operational tempo seemingly endlessly; I hardly got sick, never went to the doctor and felt invincible. Did I stop to show gratitude at the time? No, I took it for granted and pushed on.

These days, well I'm no weakling and still have strength and endurance the ability to do difficult things...but I have a medical condition, a serious one, and that inhibits what I can do and when to some degree - and I recover far more slowly. I'm probably way more active than the average person (I work hard at it) but I'm certainly nowhere near the same man I was in younger years. It fucken sucks! Looking back, I should have been more grateful for what I had, maybe looked after myself a little better, knees, back, head (concussions), wore ear plugs to mitigate all the load bangs going on around me...but I took my health for granted. Now...I show gratitude for waking up each day and in a reasonable state of physical (and mental) health and never take it for granted.

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That's it...a basic response to my own topic in the #weekend-engagement topics for week 212.

Reading this back makes me feel a little annoyed with myself for having taken these things for granted but I was working with what I had and knew at the time I guess and making decisions based on the present rather than what may occur in the future. I've learned that a little balance in that respect, a little forethought, is a better way to go and that's what I work around now.