FriendBurst Blog

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Who amongst us as children, or even sometimes as an adult, could ever resist passing by a gumball machine without putting in a quarter (although I remember as a kid they only cost 5 or 10 cents each) and enjoying a small, sweet reminder of one of the simpler pleasures in life? And when we do drop our quarter in and turn that dial, just how often do we hope we’ll get a red gumball? Why are the red ones so gosh darn appealing? And just why do they always somehow wind up being found WAYYY at the top of the gumball pile, just out of reach, and an utter impossibility to get unless you want to spend a small fortune in your attempt to acquire it? And most importantly……just why is it that we always want the red one so much when every other color is available to us easily and they all basically taste the same anyway? It’s simple. Because it’s human nature for us to want what we can’t have and take for granted what we can.

Whether it’s our home, job, health or the people in our lives, just why is it so easy for us to often take these things, these gifts, for granted and just assume they will always be there? There is not one amongst us who isn’t guilty of doing this from time to time, but just why do we let it happen? Just why do we so easily take for granted what is just there, right in front of us, what is dependable? Shouldn’t we, instead, appreciate that which is there, that which stays, that which is reliable, even MORE than what is elusive and always seemingly out of reach? But unfortunately most of the time, it just doesn’t work that way. We always seem to want what’s elusive…. the forbidden fruit…. thinking it tastes all that much sweeter than the fruit that is available to us with ease. We always want to strive for something that seems unattainable and often work our hardest and put forth our greatest effort to achieve what seems unachievable but quite often in the process, letting what was once golden to us simply turn to dust. Just why is knowing we can’t have something make us want it all the more?

Is it anticipation that feeds our hunger?  Is thinking and dreaming of reaching our goals truly the BEST part of the whole process, even better than the actual achievement itself? How many of us have experienced a feeling of disappointment when what we dreamed about and built up in our minds turned out to be not as great as we thought it would be once we had it? When you come down to it, are we truly our own worst enemies because sometimes we just can’t manage to find true happiness and contentment with what we have or can easily get?

Or is it the challenge of having a goal….. the thrill of the hunt….. that drives us, sparks our interest, and gets our blood flowing? There’s nothing wrong with always trying to want something better for ourselves and working towards trying to find it but at some point, don’t we also need to just stop and take a look around at what we already have?  If we did, we might just discover that the blue and yellow gumballs that roll out of the machine so easily on our first try, that are so easy to get, aren’t half bad after all, once we  stop focusing so much on that red gumball at the top, which is probably stale and dried out anyway and not as great as we think.

I would like to end this with some wise words and some sage advice of how we need to be appreciative of what we have and the people we have in our lives but I think we all know that already. What I can say is that being appreciative and showing appreciation takes practice. Consider it a habit that should be formed instead of broken.  We all lose site of what and who are really important to us sometimes. What matters is just how long we let it continue before we decide to do something about it.