Things We Take For Granted

“Life on earth”, how many times have we heard this phrase? We just take so much for granted. If one really thinks hard about it, can we really be sure all life on this planet is originally from here? When scientists say things like life can only exist in a certain habitable zone are they completely off base? How do we know that some life on this planet didn’t exist in a completely different way somewhere else and somehow was transported here in some primitive form and over millions of years adapted to life like it is now? When one gets right down to it, it is hard to be sure of many things we take for granted. One of the things we take for granted which we must be crazy to do is our atmosphere. We dump all sorts of things into it. This is the same atmosphere which makes life possible on the planet and which we ingest into our lungs thousands of times a day.

We take our water for granted and yet it has been disappearing at a record pace. Manufacturing uses far more water than we use as individuals. People don’t realize it, but it takes 75,000 gallons of water just to cool one ton of steel. Many different industries use water in one way or another and you would think they would have tried alternate methods, but no one wants to spend the money to develop an alternate system and on top of that another system may make the manufacturing process too expensive to compete with those who still use water. This would have to be a world effort not just a company one. Our bodies are 90 percent water so you can see how necessary water is for our type of life and yet much of the water on this planet, both fresh and salt, is being polluted and is not fit for us or the life which is in it. What kind of sane people would do this? The answer is those who value profit above the safety of the general public.
We take our electrical supply for granted. Every day we turn on our lights, set our heating system, use our air conditioners in hot weather, watch television and use our computers and game systems. We make phone calls all over the world and we think nothing about it. The problem is this could all end in the blink of an eye. Our electrical grid is very vulnerable. It can be knocked out by hacking or an electrical pulse quite easily. It can even go down from storms as we know and unforeseen unfortunate events. This is a problem which may not exist in the future as we get more homes off the grid as they gain their own power plants such solar power, or fuel cells.

When things seem to be going well we never bother to think about the things we take for granted. These things only seem to come up when something goes wrong. Take our cars for example. Most of us believe we will be able to get into our cars and travel anywhere we want and then drive home. We never think about the car breaking down, not starting or hitting some obstacle on our way which will make us very late. Most new cars are far more reliable than cars used to be, but things still happen. The truth is most of us don’t walk to our cars and say I hope it will start, I hope it doesn’t break down or I hope I get where I am going. This is quite normal, but we do take our cars for granted in most cases.

Many of us take our health for granted. A good portion of us may not even get yearly checkups and never bother to think of our health until we get stricken by some disease. We take for granted that we will be able to go where we want anytime we want, but this can all change in an instant. If we talk to some of the people who can no longer get around and listen to what they have to say, we can see many of them never expected to become bed ridden, wheel chair bound or some such thing. Sometimes it only took a fall or broken bone for them to realize how precious life is and how much freedom of movement means to us. Most of us just don’t get this until something happens.

We believe in this country we will always be able to go to the store take out our dollars and buy what we want. We take our money for granted, but the truth is our money may soon come under assault. There is a financial war raging today and we are yet to learn who the losers are going to be. There is a chance it could be us, the Russians or the entire world. If we lose this war we could have happen to us what happened to Germany before the Second World War. Their money lost so much value so quickly the people were taking wheel barrows of it to bakers for just a loaf of bread. There are a lot of warning signs out there right now pertaining to the value of our money.

Most of us take our memories for granted. Some of us are blessed with tremendous retaining power and can remember many different things from years ago. This is something that most of us lose as we age and it is then that we appreciate what we had even more. It is very sad when the memory slips and the person it is happening to doesn’t admit to this and insists they remember everything which sometimes causes problems for the family. I am the first one to admit my memory is not what it used to be when I was younger.

One thing many of us take for granted is we will get the right prescription drug from the druggist or the doctor will prescribe the correct prescription drug. I got into the habit of asking about any new drugs which were prescribed. I would ask the doctor and the druggist. I became more careful because I was prescribed a drug for my child’s eyes and when I went to get it the druggist asked me what it was for and said you are not going to put this in your eyes are you? It turned the doctor wrote the wrong drug on the prescription and the reason the druggist asked me this question was there were two forms of this drug, one for the eyes and one not for the eyes which could damage them.

The last thing I want to mention we take for granted is life itself. Life is a gift which we should cherish and never take for granted. We are only on this earth for a short period of time and we should relish our lives and try and do as much good with them as we can. Life is about helping family members and others who are less fortunate than us and we should appreciate the fact every day that we are alive.