Why We Value What We Have Least

I’m sitting at Alana’s right now, surrounded by gorgeous people.

Los Angeles is full of them.

Everywhere you look, someone with perfect hair, perfect skin, perfect everything.

The kind of people who look like they walked out of a magazine shoot on their way to get coffee.

I guess that's why they call Los Angeles, La-La Land, and the land of plastic people, too much plastic surgery.

And yes, lots of stars and celebrities, I've bumped into a bunch of them in my 40 years here. The coolest encounter was with Pierce Brosnan, he's a cool cookie IMO.

But here’s what I’ve learned from years on the mat and from what Amy has taught me about the mind-body connection: you can read people differently when you know how to look.

Not just the surface.

The story underneath.

Martial arts teaches you somatic communication.

You learn to notice tension, hesitation, the way someone carries themselves.

It makes you more curious about the difference between how people present and who they might actually be.

Once you start paying attention that way, you notice something strange.

Beauty is abundant here.

It’s visible, marketed, enhanced, photographed, filtered, displayed, and treated like currency.

And yet, when I talk to people who haven’t found their person yet, most of them aren’t primarily looking for someone who just looks good anymore.

They want something harder to find.

Character. Depth. Loyalty. Values. Curiosity. Connection. Integrity. Kindness. Self-awareness. Reliability.

The ability to build a meaningful life together instead of just looking good in photos.

The grass looks greener on the other side of the fence. But a lot of the time, it’s because we’re staring at what we don’t have instead of watering what’s under our feet.

The Pattern That Shows Up Everywhere

I’ve had a lot of conversations over the years. With all kinds of people. Different backgrounds, different struggles, different stages of life.

And I keep hearing the same pattern.

We value what we have the least of.

Wealthy people want more time. Or connection. They have money, but they’re lonely. Or they’re working so hard to keep the money that they never see their kids. They can buy anything except the one thing they’re missing.

People without enough money understandably want more of it. They think if they just had enough, everything else would fall into place. The relationship problems would ease. The stress would lift. The respect would arrive.

People who feel undervalued want recognition. Sometimes they chase the appearance of competence before they’ve built the real thing. Not out of dishonesty, but because the need to feel respected is urgent.

People in relationships want novelty.

People who are single want stability.

People with freedom want structure.

People with structure want freedom.

Everyone’s fixated on the thing they don’t have.

And the thing they do have?

It fades into the background.

It becomes ordinary.

Invisible.

Taken for granted.

I hear it often enough.

If only I had more money. If only I had a partner. If only I had time. If only I lived somewhere else. If only I had started sooner.

As if the missing piece is the only thing standing between them and fulfillment.

But here’s what I’ve noticed.

When people finally get the thing they were chasing, it doesn’t always fix what they thought it would fix.

The wealthy person gets more time and realizes they don’t know what to do with it.

The poor person gets money and discovers it doesn’t solve the relationship problems or the lack of purpose.

The single person finds a partner and starts noticing all the ways the person doesn’t match the fantasy they built.

Because the real problem wasn’t always the absence of the thing.

Sometimes the real problem was the belief that fulfillment lives somewhere else.

The Wandering Eyes Problem

I see this most clearly in relationships.

I know a lot of people—men and women—who struggle with wandering eyes.

They have a good partner. Someone loyal, kind, present, trying. But they don’t appreciate them.

Instead, they fixate on what’s missing. The spark that faded. The excitement that wore off. The fantasy of someone new who might fill the gap they feel.

They think someone else will complete them. Someone else will finally make them happy. Someone else will be easier, better, more exciting, more whatever.

But they’re not investing in the relationship they have.

They’re not asking whether the problem is the partner or whether it’s familiarity, comparison, and inattention.

No one is perfect.

The question isn’t whether your partner is flawless.

The question is whether you can be perfect for each other by working on the relationship instead of wishing it were different.

Sometimes the spark fades because people change in ways that no longer fit. Sometimes a relationship genuinely is the wrong match.

But a lot of the time, the spark fades because one or both people stopped feeding it.

They stopped being curious. They stopped asking questions. They stopped noticing the small things. They stopped making an effort.

And then they wonder why the relationship feels flat.

What Amy Gave Me

Finding Amy gave me something I see a lot of people searching for and not finding.

Security.

Not financial security. Emotional security.

The kind that comes from knowing someone sees you, values you, and isn’t going anywhere.

Amy isn’t perfect. I’m not perfect.

We’re not living in some romantic fantasy where everything is easy and nothing requires work.

But we work on being perfect for each other.

That means paying attention. Investing. Choosing to see her instead of letting her fade into the background.

It means noticing when I start taking something for granted and pulling my attention back.

Because here’s the thing nobody tells you about good relationships: they don’t stay good by accident.

A good relationship takes work.

There's that line in the movie, Crazy, Stupid, Love, and I love it.

Cal, the role played by Steve Carell, says:

Now, I don't think only married couples experience this, any committed relationship can have this experience and I love it as a cautionary lesson.

Familiarity can become the enemy of appreciation.

The longer you’re with someone, the easier it becomes to stop seeing them clearly. They become part of the furniture. Part of the routine. Part of the life you’re too busy living to notice.

And that’s when the wandering eyes can start.

Not always because the partner isn’t good enough. Sometimes because you stopped watering the grass under your own feet and started staring at the grass across the fence.

I’ve watched this happen to people I respect. Good people. People who had something real and let it slip away because they convinced themselves something better was waiting elsewhere.

Sometimes they leave and find out the new person has all the same problems, just in a different package.

Sometimes they stay but emotionally check out, and the relationship becomes a shell of what it could have been.

And sometimes, if they’re lucky, they catch themselves before it’s too late. They realize the problem wasn’t always the person. It was the inattention. The comparison. The fantasy that someone else would require less work.

But the work is the point.

The work is what makes it good.

The Grass Is Always Greener Where You’re Not Looking

There’s a reason that phrase exists.

The grass looks greener elsewhere because you’re concentrating your attention there. You’re imagining it. You’re giving it energy, focus, and hope.

Meanwhile, the grass under your feet gets ignored. It doesn’t get watered. It doesn’t get tended. And then you wonder why it’s not as vibrant as the fantasy you’ve been nurturing in your head.

This isn’t just about relationships.

It’s about work. Health. Freedom. Money. Time. Friendships. Opportunities.

The things you have can stop feeling valuable once they become familiar.

The things you don’t have start feeling essential.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t want more. I’m not saying ambition is bad. I’m not saying you should settle for less than you deserve.

I’m saying that if you can’t appreciate what you have, getting more of something else won’t fix it.

You’ll just adapt to the new normal and start looking for the next thing.

The Difference Between Appreciation and Settling

I’m not telling you to settle.

I’m not saying you should stay in a bad relationship, a toxic job, or a situation that’s genuinely wrong for you.

Sometimes the grass really is greener elsewhere. Sometimes the soil you’re standing on is poison and you need to leave.

Sometimes a relationship is broken beyond repair. Sometimes a business model doesn’t work. Sometimes a city or a career or a friendship has run its course and holding on is worse than letting go.

But a lot of the time, the problem isn’t the situation.

It’s that you stopped seeing it.

You stopped investing. You stopped paying attention. You stopped asking what’s good about what you have and started asking what’s wrong with it.

Appreciation isn’t denial. It’s clarity.

It’s being able to tell the difference between a real problem and ordinary familiarity.

Between something that needs to change and something that just needs attention.

Between a mismatch that requires action and restless comparison that will follow you wherever you go.

The hardest part is being honest about which one you’re dealing with.

Because it’s easier to blame the situation than to admit you stopped tending it.

It’s easier to chase novelty than to do the work of staying present with what you already have.

The Dojo Drill: The Grass Audit

Here’s what I want you to do.

Take a piece of paper. Divide it into three sections.

Section 1: What I Keep Looking For

Write down everything that feels absent, scarce, or somewhere else. The things you fixate on. The “if only” list.

Be honest. Don’t edit yourself. If you’re obsessing over it, write it down.

Section 2: What I Have Stopped Seeing

Write down the valuable people, freedoms, abilities, relationships, resources, opportunities, or comforts that have become ordinary through familiarity.

The things you used to appreciate but now take for granted.

The partner who shows up every day. The body that still works. The job that pays the bills. The friends who pick up the phone. The freedom to choose how you spend your time.

Section 3: What Actually Needs Attention

Go through both lists. For each item, decide:

• Appreciate it.
• Repair it.
• Develop it.
• Renegotiate it.
• Release it.
• Or pursue something genuinely better.

This isn’t about forcing fake gratitude. It’s about creating clearer judgment.

You may discover that the thing you're chasing is not the real problem.

Sometimes, the problem is that you stopped tending what you already have.

Chuck

⚔ The Dojo Drill

Today’s training:

The Compliment Drill

Give someone a specific compliment today.

Not flattery.

Observation.

📚 Leader’s Library

Book I recommend this week:

​​​Poor Charlie's Almanack by Charlie Munger​

Why?

Because it will give you the rare opportunity to get inside the head of a billionaire and what it took for him to get there.

P.S. If you’re a gym owner or martial artist who wants to build a business that doesn’t run you into the ground, I help people create systems that let them stay in their Zone of Genius. Come find me at The Leader’s Dojo.