One of the first blog posts that I published in my ideas+business page was aimed at educating you on how to sell what people want. It got me thinking on how to follow up on this important topic. Not everything is sell, sell, sell! There are in fact things in life that you can get for free. Not everything comes with a hefty price tag. So for this post I thought it would be useful to share the top five best things in life that you can get for free.
Everyone likes free stuff. Ever get frustrated by learning that something is not actually free? For example, signing up online for services requires you to give them your personal information like your birthdate. Definitely not for free.
While coming up with this list, I found myself leaning more towards the things we take for granted, the everyday things that we don’t appreciate enough.
These are mostly things that you would think about while trying to fill a gratitude journal, and are not tangible items we can own. They do not have monetary value in the usual sense. They don’t belong to anyone; they belong to everyone.
No one owns these, it’s free for people to enjoy. There’s no need to look for bargain prices, and there’s no haggling required to enjoy these things.
The Top Five Best Things in Life That Are For Free
1. Fresh Air
2. Water
3. A Walk Outside in the Park
4. Friendship
5. Freedom
1. Fresh Air
For those of you who are lucky enough to live in unpolluted cities, fresh air should top your list of the best things you can get for free.
To appreciate fresh air and feel gratitude for having limitless amounts of it, take a break from work or from studying and go outside. Breathe in deeply for a count of three, and exhale for a count of three.
Feel that? It’s fresh air, and you don’t even have to pay for it. No one can put a price tag on it, so have as much of it as you want.
I know what the next thing you’re thinking. How long will it be that fresh air is free and available to everyone? What if you live in areas where pollution is rampant, the air quality is low, and you can’t safely breathe it in unless it’s filtered?
My point is, this is a call to protect the environment. Take public transit or bike if you can, instead of driving your car. Protect the environment so that everyone can share and make use of it freely.
2. Water
Water is closely related to fresh air. It comes from the environment. Clean water is free, and I don’t mean the $4.50 one litre of bottled water at the grocery store, but the one from the tap. Okay, we have to pay our water bill, but you get the point.
Clean water is not available to everyone. In underdeveloped countries, clean water is scarce and hard to come by.
Everyone has turned on the tap for some water, and admit it, sometimes we’ve wasted that water. It’s something that we take for granted, so much so that we don’t realize when we waste it. It’s available instantaneously, like magic.
When something is freely available like it’s a normal, everyday part of our lives, it’s easy to overlook how lucky we are that we have clean water.
So next time you turn on the tap for a glass of cold, drinkable water, appreciate the fact that you can have it whenever you want it.
3. A Walk Outside in the Park
It’s free to take a walk outside in the park. Unlike having to pay for a fitness class, taking a walk in the park is free exercise. It doesn’t cost anything, and there are numerous health benefits.
During a busy work week, take some time during your lunch break to get outside, and bring a friend so that together, you can refresh your minds by breathing in all that free air.
Walking is a meditative exercise, and you only need fifteen minutes to reap the benefits. It makes you calmer and more focused. It gives you more energy to tackle all the things that are still in your to-do list.
You may have heard that sitting down is the new smoking. So do yourself a favor and increase your longevity by getting up, going outside, and talking a fifteen minute walk with a friend.
4. Friendship
This leads me to the next thing in the list of best things in life that you can get for free. Friendship should be given freely. Whether you meet in person or over the internet, being sociable can extend your lifespan and protect you from neurodegenerative diseases.
So call your friends or relatives that you haven’t kept in touch with over the years and invite them for a walk or for coffee. If you can’t see them face to face, have a FaceTime call. These people are important in your life, so cherish your friendships and keep them alive. It’s like watering a plant; your plant, or friendship, will die if you don’t take care of it everyday.
Cultivate the friendships that make you happy, and share your interests, hobbies, and everyday activities with them. Joining a social club or group is also a way to cultivate new friendships.
A good friend doesn’t have to be a rare commodity if you work hard at finding those who support you during bad times and share your joys during the good times.
5. Freedom
The last thing on the list of the top five best things in life that are for free is freedom. If you live in a free country, you probably don’t think of this everyday as something that we should appreciate. But you should realize that some people in the world don’t have freedom, or have ever tasted it, or have had it taken away from them.
Our gratitude for freedom needs to be something that we add to our gratitude journal everyday.
We can breathe in fresh air, drink clean water, step outside in the park without fear for our safety, and be friends with anyone that we want, without being punished for it.
So take care of the environment and take care of each other so we can prevent ourselves from putting a price tag on these things in the future.
You can see the point I’m trying to make with this list. The only way to keep these things free and available to everyone is prevent them from being threatened by our own carelessness.
The future is hopeful. Humanity doesn’t have to play a part in threatening these resources and making them scarce and enjoyable by only a privileged few.
There are actions that people are taking right now to protect the environment and each other.
By taking the time to appreciate what we can get for free, it will give us a reason to keep things free and accessible to all, because as soon as we put a value or price tag on them, they will no longer be free to everyone.
Putting an ownership on something that was once for free is an injustice. There doesn’t have to be a hidden cost to freedom.