How many times a day do we stop to think about the basic things that sustain our lives — and how much we take them for granted?

  This morning, like every other, I went out to walk my dog. Shortly after I got back, the power went out. My first thought was that it was just our building, since it was a clear spring day. A few minutes passed and I began to hear people outside the building saying they also had no electricity or water. When I opened Twitter, I saw that it was a nationwide blackout. Soon after, news came in saying it wasn’t limited to Portugal – it had also affected Spain and parts of England, France, Germany, and Italy.
 When I read that, I admit I got a little scared: I had never experienced a widespread blackout. And, as if that wasn’t enough, minutes later, the electricity and water outage was joined by a total loss of telecommunications. It became impossible to make calls or use mobile data. We were, in fact, cut off from the rest of the world.
 Theories quickly started circulating – some claimed it was a problem at a French power plant, others suggested it might be a cyberattack linked to support for Ukraine against Russia. If that were the case, we might be stuck for days without access to what, for as long as we can remember, seemed like a given.
 It was in a moment of silence – since I could only think, read, or write on paper – that it hit me how much we take for granted little things like turning on the bathroom light, opening a tap, or charging a phone. Even without access to these things, habit would lead me to try to use them automatically, only to be reminded that none of it was working.
 It’s only when everything is taken
away that we truly understand how dependent we are – and how much we take for granted what has always just been there.
 The truth is that in our daily routine, the foundations of modern life – electricity, water, internet, telecommunications – have become so automatic that we rarely stop to reflect on how important they are. We open the tap without thinking that the water coming out travelled a long way to reach us. We flip a switch without imagining everything behind a lit home. We send a message in seconds without considering the infrastructure that makes that “small” gesture possible.
 Gratitude slowly fades, smothered by the normalization of abundance. Not because we’re intentionally ungrateful – but because, in the rush of our days, we forget to realize that what is guaranteed today was, in many times and places, an unattainable luxury.
 The topic of how often we complain about life, even when we’re privileged, will be left for another reflection. But I’ll leave a little provocation here: if we’re not capable of being thankful for the basics, how can we expect to feel grateful for the extraordinary?
 Maybe the big mistake is thinking that “the normal” doesn’t deserve our recognition. That only what is rare, grand, or spectacular deserves a feeling of gratitude. But the truth is, life is largely made up of those small certainties we don’t even notice.
 Having light, having water, having signal to talk to the people we love, having the freedom to open a tap and drink without fear... All of that is a miracle disguised as routine. And if today we were forced to stop, maybe it’s so we don’t forget that nothing – absolutely nothing – is guaranteed.
 At the end of the day, the question I leave you with is: how many blessings go unnoticed simply because we’ve grown used to having them?