Taking It For Granted
My life isn’t perfect: I could stand to be more flexible and pain-free; it wouldn’t be bad to be richer; and there still isn’t a Henry’s Hunan restaurant in Seattle; still, most things considered, I have it made, even though I usually take that almost entirely for granted if not ignore it completely.
Like this morning, for instance, I got to get up at a reasonable hour, take a bike ride in relatively warm weather through reasonably safe, fairly empty streets, plop myself down with the New York Times in an almost-empty coffee shop that whose roasts coffee experts consider some of the best in the world, and now I’m sitting on my posterior watching my childhood hometown faves the Pittsburgh Steelers take on my current hometown second-faves in an NFL game on TV while listening to the radio broadcast from Pittsburgh through the miracle of the interwebby-thing.
Woot!
There’s probably an evolutionary adaptive advantage to being easily dissatisfied; no doubt our hunter-gatherer ancestors who wanted more than a single leg of mastodon did better at passing on their DNA those who rested complacently at a single serving, but still, it seems odd that we all tend to be more concerned with what we don’t have than what we do.
Why, for instance, should I be so bent out of shape about not being able to be more bent out of shape, instead of resting happily that I can rest happily without hurting? Or how come I complain to myself that I can’t afford to fly to Paris for the weekend when I can, if I want, lay out 200 bucks for lugged handlebar stem for my new bike to be.
Shouldn’t I be more pleased with what I’ve got than displeased with what I haven’t? Seems sensible, but maybe not: right now I’m bummed that the Steelers aren’t winning even though, with a 0-0 score at the end of quarter one, they’re not losing.
Like this morning, for instance, I got to get up at a reasonable hour, take a bike ride in relatively warm weather through reasonably safe, fairly empty streets, plop myself down with the New York Times in an almost-empty coffee shop that whose roasts coffee experts consider some of the best in the world, and now I’m sitting on my posterior watching my childhood hometown faves the Pittsburgh Steelers take on my current hometown second-faves in an NFL game on TV while listening to the radio broadcast from Pittsburgh through the miracle of the interwebby-thing.
Woot!
There’s probably an evolutionary adaptive advantage to being easily dissatisfied; no doubt our hunter-gatherer ancestors who wanted more than a single leg of mastodon did better at passing on their DNA those who rested complacently at a single serving, but still, it seems odd that we all tend to be more concerned with what we don’t have than what we do.
Why, for instance, should I be so bent out of shape about not being able to be more bent out of shape, instead of resting happily that I can rest happily without hurting? Or how come I complain to myself that I can’t afford to fly to Paris for the weekend when I can, if I want, lay out 200 bucks for lugged handlebar stem for my new bike to be.
Shouldn’t I be more pleased with what I’ve got than displeased with what I haven’t? Seems sensible, but maybe not: right now I’m bummed that the Steelers aren’t winning even though, with a 0-0 score at the end of quarter one, they’re not losing.
posted by Professor Dave at 10:51 AM
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