You learn to be thankful for the simple things, once you've had everything taken away from you. Posted by gingersoaplovin , Jun 2, 2011 at 10:13 PM, in Labels: Epiphanys

When I was fifteen years young, and had two days to go until I turned sixteen, I was arrested.  You see, my friends and I all had very closely happening birthdays and decided to throw one big birthday bash!  It was all good fun, and we were smart enough to be safe with it and not allow any of us to have our car keys after we started drinking.  We thought we could do no wrong. 

That is, until we were arrested at 2:30 in the morning.  Usually you'd think, 'oh they were probably being loud or rude'.  No, we actually kept our noise level at a minimum, kept every one who had drank something in the house for the night, and did not create any havoc.  We were actually very responsible.  We had a friend there earlier who we had to kick out, however, a sober friend mind you.  He was being violent and antagonistic to the drunk people, and we didn't want any violence so we told him he had to leave.

That night, he sat outside and waited for the lights to go off.  Then he called the cops and had us all arrested, shortly thereafter, he robbed the place of every possession the guy had. 

Now here's where the title comes in to play:

I lost the respect of the people around me.  I lost privileges I had previously taken advantage of; such as going out with my friends, listening to my ipod, hell even watching basic tv was a privilege.  I didn't realize this, however, until after I was sent to jail for 30 days and lost touch with everything I had taken for granted.  I realized how special it was, even, to be given a proper education and a good chance to learn--which we did not get in jail.  Shortly after jail, they sent me to rehab for nine months.  They would not let us wear the clothes we wanted to wear, eat the food we wanted to eat, listen to the music we wanted to listen to, or do the things we wanted to do.  At the time, this place seemed like  a hell hole to me.  But now I realize that it just made me so much more grateful, and eventually allowed me to realize how much joy you can feel if you allow yourself to enjoy the beauty of even the simple things we are granted.  I realized how you don't necessarily need a lot of things to be happy, just a good attitude and to be surrounded by people you love, who love you in return.

This woman's blog post about greed inspired me to post this:

The Evolution of Happiness