Why do we take things for granted?

The simplest answer to the above question is because we have to; it’s in our nature.

The recent events in Cyprus (for those reading this piece at a later time, I’m talking about the bailout crisis of March 2013) has caused a major uproar on the island, and in fact, the entire world. Locals are practically up in arms, as their very livelihood is at stake. Even as I write this, thousands of protestors flock the streets, angry at the politicians and other authorities that have caused this despondent turmoil. There is no work security as thousands lose their jobs, no guarantee on savings as their hard-earned cash is taken away by simple daylight robbery, and no access to capital will result in hundreds of small businesses shutting down and/or filing for bankruptcy. The prospects look bleak and the current generation need to work harder than ever to regain some inkling of stability for their children to have a decent future in.

I’m not going to go into the economic reasons behind the collapse, or the financial consequences and measures that need to be taken. I will leave that to the technocrats and other professionals that have the knowledge and expertise on how to fix a broken country. What I really wanted to explore is a psychological effect pertaining to such times and why it is allowed to thrive until such critical sparks make us aware of it. I am talking of course about why we take things for granted. With these jarring events comes the sudden and frighteningly real possibility that our everyday life, from the money coming into our bank account every month to the roof over our heads, can be taken away from us by the mere whims of higher powers, whatever they may be. The safe world we once knew and assumed to always be there to care for us is no more. That really puts things into perspective. Will we have food on the table for our next meal? Can I walk safely in the streets in the middle of the night? Our very basic needs are at stake here.

I know, I may be going overboard with this soapy melodrama, but these vital concerns are certainly passing through many people’s minds the last couple of weeks as they worry over their future and their children’s futures. We are a spoilt generation, I cannot deny that. Until the crisis pounced, many of us just took it for granted that our next meal, our next pay check, even our houses, would be there day in and day out for an indefinite period of time.  Now that these might be taken away from us, we are probably looking at them in a whole different light. We can perhaps appreciate them more, hopefully for long enough to change the way we view them forever; perceive them in the way our parents and their parents saw them, which is why they toiled long and hard with their blood and sweat to make sure we were left a decent legacy to place our feet on.

So why do we take such basic human needs for granted? One reason that is blatantly obvious is the materialistic driven society that we have created for ourselves. We are surrounded by a manifested culture that focuses on greed and jealously. We can feel it when our neighbour shows off that new car, or our colleague proudly displays that latest gadget. Society taught us to want, instead of to need. We don’t really need that latest smart phone do we? But we certainly do want it. These wants have superseded our most basic human needs as the targets to achieve in our comfortable nine to five lifestyle, where we worry more about what to wear that day to work than where we will find our next meal.

We kind of dug our own graves on this one. We asked for safety and security. We wanted a steady income and a dependable future and a white picket fence. We didn’t want to hunt our food anymore and have to build a shelter from the rain every night. We wanted to sleep whole-heartedly knowing that we weren’t going to be awoken in the middle of the night by the sound of leopards nibbling on our ankles. These are reasonable aspirations and we worked hard (more or less) in building a civilisation that would achieve these goals. What we may not have realized is that this sensation of wellbeing comes at a hefty price. As we slowly build our walls around our homes, keeping the leopards out, we forget other dangers, mainly the ones we cannot control. The more complicated we build our house of cards, the more likely it will fall from the lightest touch of unforeseen circumstances. But we are oblivious to this, and we continue our daily lifestyle knowing that the leopard is thwarted behind that wall. That oblivion, that illusion of safety is what desensitises us to the possibility that our cards can come crashing down upon us any minute.

We immerse ourselves in repetitive routines, incessant habits, and insubstantial rules that form the cornerstone of our livelihoods. But at any given moment they can disappear, whether by an act of God or by the self-destructive tools of our own making. We cannot really be entirely to blame for this cycle. It is after all in our nature to want to feel safe, so we will endeavour to accomplish this objective as best as we can, using whatever means necessary. The problem is that the means became too vast, as we have connected ourselves on a global scale through technological achievement to the point that if anything’s going to be done, it will be done big. And the bigger they are...

So far I have been speaking of taking our very basic human needs for granted. But on the other side of the spectrum, we also seem to be ignoring the ‘smaller’ things around us (I should say less significant but they aren’t really). Most of us go about our daily routine searching for meaning, unaware that it is all around us, ready to be plucked and enjoyed freely for anyone who cares to truly appreciate it. The beauty of nature is a prime example; one who stops to contemplate on the vastness of what nature has achieved in its lifetime will find themselves immersed in a world of infinite wonders. Yet we mostly block it out from our view, knowing it is there but not really...knowing.

If we search inwards, in our own selves, we would also be amazed by the intricacies we could find. Ever since our distant ancestors decided to stand upright on two legs, we have expanded our mental borders and evolved the ability to be self-aware; from a young age we are able to question our motives, to imagine a world beyond ours, to create art out of nothing. Yet I feel as we grow older, we mostly squander this ability, allowing it to lie dormant as we mechanically go about our daily routines so we can just get by.

Having four working limbs, friends that care, using electricity, the list is endless. These are available for us to be grateful for any time we want, but we choose to ignore them as given perks that will be with us forever. That is until one day they suddenly disappear, at which point we realize how much they are truly missed, usually too late for wear. Why do we set ourselves up for this failure?

The modern age has brought about a phenomenon that facilitates in taking these ‘everyday’ things for granted; that is our constantly diminishing attention span. We are bombarded from all directions by advertisements, events, and people that are constantly vying for our attention. We have become unable to focus on the same task for too long before we are interrupted and our concentration required elsewhere. This has become imbued in our nature to such an extent that it happens without us realizing anymore. We can only read a few pages before our mind wanders, or watch a video online for only a few minutes before we get bored and move on. We try to cram so many entries into our daily agenda that we are unable to appreciate something for too long anymore, because our mind is always racing for the next item on the list. Let’s face it; because of this our attention span has been slowly declining over the years, it is on an all time new low, and it is directly tied to this current trend of taking things for granted.

We also seem to have a defence mechanism in place that protects us from this minute scale appreciation of all things. If you were to suddenly become fully aware of every little object and concept around you, then you must be on drugs. There’s a reason why we cannot exist in this state permanently; we would burn out in a very short while, overloaded by the constant bombardment of information on our senses. However, even though we can turn this defence mechanism on and off whenever we want, we have instead allowed it to take over completely, turning us into organisms more akin to mechanical robots than living beings with beating hearts.

Our very nature thus causes us to take things for granted. But it is a nature warped from a twisted world of our own creation, moulded from abnormal beliefs instilled into our minds like an infestation of locusts over a once beautiful field of healthy crops. They eat away at our priorities, our values, until we are left as decomposed parodies of our true potential, only able to stare hopelessly at barren fields of decay once the locusts depart, knowing it just may be too late to salvage that lost harvest. And thus we pass through the fields of our lives gazing always into the horizon, never once stopping to smell the roses and feel the grass upon our bare feet. Only when a disaster ensues do we halt our progress, question our selves, and make the true choices that separate us from Beasts, from Gods.