Limited Appreciation for Unlimited Things

In my late teens and early twenties, I lived in Hawaii for several years. When I first arrived I took every opportunity to enjoy the perfect weather and easy access to the ocean. After a couple years, however, I hit a point where I stopped appreciating the endless summer as much. Not that I didn’t enjoy it, but it didn’t have the same impact as it did when I first arrived. Whether it was July or December it was always summertime, and, being from a northern state, I had grown up with limited summer. Warm weather was a prized gift that was limited and coveted, and therefore appreciated more.

In states with a harsh winter you appreciate summer because you know it's short. In July, when the weather is beautiful and sunny and warm, you make a point to enjoy it because you know in three months the leaves will change color and fall will come around. Then fall will run its course and it will be winter again.

Not that winter is terrible. Winter is just as beautiful as summer, but in different ways. Winter is beautiful because of its harshness. The cold touches you in a primal way, tickling the survival mechanisms in your brain. You grow to understand that when it's nice outside, you could be exposed to the elements naked and have no problem surviving. If it's very cold outside and you're exposed to the elements in the same way, you would not survive very long.

We live with this illusion that time is unlimited, so we take advantage of it. We abuse it in a way that seems criminal to those whose hourglass is almost drained. It turns out time is not unlimited. Not only is it limited, we have no way to measure its remaining value. If we do find out how much we have left, we wish we didn’t know. The illusion makes us feel safe, but believing the illusion makes us unforgivably wasteful.

In one of his most famous letters, Seneca says, “It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it… But if each of us could have the tally of his future years set before him…, how alarmed would be those who saw only a few years ahead.” Ignorance is bliss until it slaps you in the face. 

Things that are unlimited lose their value as you lose your appreciation for them. There are no negative repercussions for abusing these gifts, at least until they unexpectedly run out. It is not until we understand how truly limited everything around us is that we begin to foster genuine appreciation.

This serves as a strong reminder to appreciate good times, good places, good people, because there’s no guarantee of how long they will last. We need to appreciate the beautiful green leaves on the trees in July because after their colorful transition the world will look dead and cold. We need to be present and appreciative of time with those we share love and happiness with, because even that time will be gone one day.

But, even when one good thing is gone, that does not mean that all good is gone and only bad remains. Beauty exists in different places. It can be found by appreciating how limited everything around us is. Sometimes you just have to look harder.