Do we know what we have until it's gone??

[Baron Samedi]

i know this is a song but is it true- do you take things in your life for granted??? for example if you cut yourself , like on your arm or whatever- every times you bang it it hurts- until then you don't realise how much you brush against stuff. i dont only mean stuff like that, but other stuff. if you are still living with your parents, and have a good relationship with them- do you take them for granted- if you lost them you would realise that you do??? [please post your views..

[Shinmaru]

I used to a lot. Mostly when I was a little kid and didn't know any better. Now I appreciate things a lot more. I guess with maturity comes appreciation (not that I'm really that mature - I'm a dork in real life).

[Epitome]

I take somethings for granted, but when I realize how much I have, I really do take alot for granted. My parents are nice and buy me alot of stuff so, yea sometimes I do...

[nezzyjean]

i think it depends on what it is you lose, materials posessions..i don't take for granted, but other stuff like friendships i think everyone takes for granted at least once in their life, and they don't realize how special someone was until after an estrangement.

[Sara]

[size=1]I think a difficult thing to do is to learn to appreciate the present without worrying about the future...or the past. Oftentimes, we become so focused on what's going to happen--[i]Yes, it's almost FINALLY summer![/i]--that we don't appreciate the available time to spend with our school friends, for example....or we're so dreading [i]not[/i] seeing them over the summer that it overshadows the good times you should be enjoying while you have the chance.

[That was a remarkably run-on-ish sentence.]

Something else I've noticed others...and myself...doing is regretting the past too much. Certainly, there are things you wish wouldn't have happened, or things you know now that you would have done differently...but there's only so much you can think about that before it becomes a problem.

[center][i]And I could cry for the time I've wasted,
but that's a waste of time and tears
And I know just what I'd change, if I went back in time somehow
But there's nothin' I can do about it now
[/i][/center]

So if you can manage to appreciate what you have while you have it, that's great. More power to you. But don't focus too much on the things you [i]have[/i] lost, and don't worry about the things you [i]might[/i] in the future. [/size]

[Snufkin]

We all take things forgranted whether we realize it or not. I stop and take a look at things and wonder 'what if I couldn't do this?' Do you ever stop to realize how many things are put to work just to allow you breathe? What if you had no hands? What if you were blind and couldn't see anything anymore? I wonder these things a lot and try to be happy that I do have all those things.
...oh yeah, and if I may quote my friend, "Never take q-tips forgranted" (Sorry if all this sounds really lame.)

[Lady Macaiodh]

[color=darkblue][size=1]I agree with Half Shaded that at some point people can't help taking things for granted. For example, it takes children a long time to grasp the concept of death... that something did not exist once, and eventually won't anymore. Usually, they have to witness death before they understand it.

I used to take things for granted all the time. Then, I went through a period where I lost almost everything I had except my own life. Believe me, I don't take material things for granted anymore... at all.

I've also changed a lot when it comes to guys and relationships. I'll be the first admit that I used guys all the time and often did not treat them very well. I figured that once I was tired of them, I'd just move on to the next one. Now I realize that some of them really did care deeply for me and treated me like gold. Yeah, it's horrible, I know.

But [i]then[/i] (some of you can guess what I'm about to say) I fell in love with a complete psycho who beat me and cheated on me and treated me like complete dogshit. I never realized how badly I took nice guys for granted until I was with him... *_*[/color][/size]

[XeEmO]

Well I try not to but I definatly do. It seems like I don't do it as much right after I recover from something bad. For example when I got my cast off after breaking my leg I was greatful that I didn't still have it on.