When you can speak only in a whisper, you’ll think twice as long about what you’ll say, if anything. My voice has been gone for a day, likely due to the flu, and I’m already adjusting my speaking habits.
It doesn’t take much for the simple things to be taken away, and it’s not your most prized possessions that must take a hit for you to deeply shift your perspective. Remove a man’s ability to eat what he wants, to hear, see, or feel things touching his skin, and he’ll adapt quickly and drastically, even if the change is only temporary.
What are you taking for granted that might not be granted to you tomorrow? And how would you adjust if that gift were truly gone for a week? What about a lifetime?
Seneca once said that “nothing ought to be unexpected by us.” We should “send our minds forward in advance to meet all problems, and we should consider not what is wont to happen, but what can happen.” Anticipate the unlikely but possible, and learn from it before you have to.