What Separates a Person Who Appreciates from Others?

Life’s pleasures don’t always have to be guilty ones, even the most mundane things could become a pleasure — if people would only appreciate them.

I realized two things from two events that happened a few months prior. The first realization was set inside an SUV, while I was alone waiting for the next adventure on wheels.

It was kind of nice to ride a new car — one my Dad bought in April as a promise to my late Mom. Having something new sounds cool, but undoubtedly vulnerable to what we call, under-appreciation.

Imagine you get to ride this car to work every day and you are entitled to that privilege because you are the legal owner.

The idea is that if you are privileged to ride the car every day, you sometimes forget to thank for having it in your life. Even the small parts of this machine that make it able to drive safely and function well are oftentimes unnoticed and unappreciated.

The whole point people buy cars is to use them and get from Point A to Point B — that is pretty obvious. But, we don’t usually buy the time to slow down and appreciate all the things that served us to where we are now.

The second event of realization came to me during Lola Impo’s first death anniversary. It was held in the same cemetery she is buried in. The weather at the time was humid. As with living in the Philippines, it gets over the top with the heat index making plenty of people feel quite uneasy during the event.

It got to a point where you would hear too much negative talk and see annoyed faces due to the heat but, it shocked me that people around me were reacting too much about it.

I don’t want to sound like the perfect person, because I’m nowhere near that. But, I was already feeling thankful for the mild warm breeze gently coursing through the trees. For me, the small amount of wind still made a difference — I appreciated it.

It made me ask why people around me have been acting this way. I know it also means that they are privileged enough to complain about mundane things. I could argue that people get satisfied too frequently hence, when things get in the way for them, you know they always seek a solution for it right away.

We like to do it — avoiding pain, because our brains don’t want to stay long in uncomfortable spaces.

Here I remembered a tactic that someone I watched on YouTube did or somehow was inspired from doing, it’s called detoxing.

I’m not really sure what they call it or the term they specifically use, but what it’s supposed to be is to detox oneself from all available stimulations in the environment. Getting yourself into a sort of reset, allows for the production of more good results, making the person feel extra zest.

If people would apply this detoxing method to pleasures, I wonder if a change would ensue. They might find even the smallest of things something that can be appreciated and transition into contentment.

Similarly, I‘m putting in mind the people who don’t always get to feel this satisfaction the way most of us frequently do. There are plenty of people belonging to the low socioeconomic class who don’t have the same high threshold that privileged people have. At least, not most of the time. I wonder to what extent would they be thankful and satisfied if given only a cold glass of water.

I remembered a psychology term known as “addiction”, this condition is not deemed abnormal however, we have terms such as, “tolerance” and “withdrawal” which means taking more for the same effect and feeling queasy when you’re not taking the thing that keeps you addicted.

Although there is something to collect from being the person who appreciates a bit more, we have to consider also the perspective of those who find it hard to do. I stepped back a little, maybe these unsatisfied people are too busy to see a grateful perspective — then that is one issue to address. Or maybe these people just haven’t tried enough.

But, then again we like to avoid pain and aim for pleasure, but we can always be something more than that.