TAKING THINGS FOR GRANTED HELPS, TRUST ME!

Anvita Sudarshan
6 min readApr 16, 2024

Never take things for granted. Tell me, how many times in your life have you heard that?

It might be your kids, your spouse, your friends, your job. It could be the house you live in. It could be the city you call home. It could be any goddamn thing in the whole wide world.

But never take it for granted, we hear, time and time again.

And it makes sense, doesn’t it? The kids will grow up. They grow up so fast. And one day, at the risk of sounding more and more cliched with every sentence, you lift them up in your arms for the very last time, probably to never remember that one moment.

In fact, how many such moments do we actually even remember? The last time you said bye to a friend before you drifted apart. The last time you closed a certain book before it got left behind. The last time you held your child’s hand while crossing a road before they grew up. The last time you wore a certain dress before you misplaced it. The last time you ate at a certain restaurant before it closed down.

Of course, taking something for granted or not is not just about the last times.

It’s also about savouring your day to day life. Perhaps, if you don’t take this article for granted, you’ll enjoy it more. Perhaps, if you don’t take the coffee you’re sipping for granted, you’ll savour it more. Perhaps, if you don’t take the curtains in your room for granted, you’ll treat them better and they’ll last longer. Perhaps if you don’t take yourself for granted, you’ll treat yourself better.

Not taking things for granted is a time tested strategy. And it works.

Let’s go a little deeper into this.

First of all, why is it that not taking things for granted makes us feel good? Let me take the present moment for example. Here I am, typing away on my laptop, trying to squeeze this little bit of writing in this little half hour that I have free. There are two components in this present moment that I can take for granted (right at the outset, that is. If we go deeper, I’m sure we can find many many more things) — my laptop, and this little sliver of free time.

What if I took my laptop for granted? I might fling it on the table. Or slam the lid down. Or maybe carry it in a way where it is prone to bang into other things. I might not take care to keep my firewall up. I might download anything and everything and introduce bugs into my system. Long story short, my laptop will die very very shortly if I take it for granted. And then I will not have a laptop to write on. Or more realistically, I will have to shell out on a new laptop — money that could have been wisely elsewhere. In this case, taking my laptop for granted makes me care for it less, thus making me poorer. An unfavourable outcome.

Now this sliver of 30 minutes that I’m writing in. If I take it for granted, well, I probably wouldn’t be writing in that case. I would procrastinate. I would watch reels, perhaps. Or browse quora. And then, when that half hour ends, I would feel unhappy with myself for having wasted some more time, when instead, I could have been doing something that truly makes me happy. So in this case, taking my time for granted makes me care for it less, thus making me unhappier. Again, an unfavourable outcome.

But, but, but -

There is a case to be made for taking things for granted also.

Let’s look first at the common denominator in the above two scenarios. In both scenarios, taking either the laptop or my time for granted made me care less about the said laptop and time. Therefore, the common denominator here is that taking something for granted makes you care less about it.

‘Of course, it is, we’re not stupid’, I hear you say right now. But hear me out.

Lets say I’m working on the same laptop in the same 30 minutes that I have carved out. Now, while I am working on the laptop, my hypothetical toddler decides to empty his/her glass of water right on top of my laptop. I react with a scream before I could even think about what is happening. The scream upsets the child, who promptly responds with a series of screams of her own.

Now what?

Now, with the previous logic, since I have not taken the laptop for granted, I am devastated at the loss of my laptop which now might cost me a bomb to repair. As it is, the screen is flickering all colours of the rainbow, so that will have to be changed. On top of it, since I immediately have to attend to the child, the water might trickle down to the motherboard, and now at this point I might just buy a new laptop. As seen earlier, not taking my laptop for granted made me care more, but yet made me poorer. An unfavourable outcome where one would usually expect a favourable outcome.

Now, the time. The precious half an hour I managed to carve out from between my job and caring for my child is gone. Poof. Into the thin air. Because between the panic and the desperate mopping at the laptop, I have discovered that the child is also screaming. I must now attend to the child. Calming her down will take a good 10–20 minutes. And there goes my half-hour. Again, I didn’t take my time for granted, and that made me care for the time more. But yet, that made me unhappier. Again, an unfavourable outcome where one would usually expect a favourable outcome.

Lastly, the child. The third component. The child is now screaming murder. And as a parent, that makes me unhappy, frustrated and perhaps even resentful. All very natural feelings. I did not take the child for granted, and yet, yet, yet, that has made me unhappier.

So what should one do in this case? To take for granted or to not to? That is the question. (Also, please forgive the cliches. It turns out I cannot live without them. I live to cringe, apparently).

Well, let’s look at it this way.

The laptop. It will die on me one day. If I am lucky, that will not happen for a good few years. If I am unlucky, it will happen today. Let me take that for granted. See, the laptop is not taken for granted. But the fact that it will die and that it could be anytime now is.

The time. Murphy’s law. Whatever can happen will happen. And that might cause me to give up this little sliver of time. Let me take that for granted. Here, the time is not taken for granted. But the fact that it could be taken away from me anytime at any point is.

The child. Let’s face it. We’re looking at a toddler. You might as well have a tyrannosaurus loose in the room. Whatever can spill, will spill. Whatever can break, will break. Whatever can make the child laugh, will make her laugh. Whatever can make her scream too, will make her scream. Let’s take that for granted too. You’re not taking the child for granted here. But her actions, yes, you are.

The crux here ultimately does not lie in either taking things for granted or not taking them for granted. The crux here lies in the balance. The balance of knowing when to take what for granted, and when not to.

It’s not easy, you can take that for granted too. It’s easy for me to compartmentalise everything so clearly here and write it out. But, when it’s happening, when your laptop is drenched and your child is screaming and you have to be at work in half an hour, your thoughts are all over each other. There is no compartmentalising happening at that moment.

But then, compartmentalising never happens in that very moment. It is always done when you finally have a minute to yourself. When you sit with yourself with that hot cup of tea, and you go over your day with yourself. That is when compartmentalisation happens.

Or maybe, when you’re driving, allowing yourself to be on auto-pilot, maybe that is when compartmentalisation happens.

Either way, it will happen. You just have to allow it the space to happen. Take that time to yourself. Take that action of taking time for yourself for granted, in fact. Make it happen. And it will.

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Anvita Sudarshan
Anvita Sudarshan

Written by Anvita Sudarshan

Author, Organic Farmer and Co-Founder of Silverfish Books Buy 'Beauty Queen' at https://www.amazon.in/dp/9390924103/

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