Costanza et al. wrote a paper in 1997 titled “The value of the world's ecosystem services and natural capital” in which they dared to do the impossible: put a monetary value on all that nature provides us. Reading this influential paper for my Environmental Policy 102 class got me thinking: What else are we given that we take for granted?
The more I thought about it, the more the answer became clear: lots of things.
From the necessities that we are provided with from birth to the kind words said by our loved ones at our funeral, most of what is valuable in life we receive by the grace of others.
The least we can do is be grateful for it.
Mother Nature is one of the most overlooked givers.
Last July, I discovered a secret gem in my garden: the modest boughs of a young crape myrtle. More importantly, I discovered how much I preferred being outside. For me, there is nothing more relaxing than reading under the shade of a tree.
Americans collectively spend billions of dollars on dream vacations every year. Think of how many cruise trips we embark on. How many “calming” SPA massages we pay for. How many fragrance oil diffusers we buy, leaving our rooms smelling like lavender. Lavender is a relaxing scent, I admit. But so is the smell of freshly cut grass on a sunny afternoon.
Perhaps, a lot of us would feel fulfilled by the latter, if we only gave it a try.
It’s no news that nature is good for us. We embellish our spaces with it, we advocate to protect it, and yet we still, as a generation, resist spending time in it.
Spending time in nature has been proven to improve our physical and mental wellbeing time and time again. But we’ve still been ignoring the elemental lesson — our parents were right. Go play outdoors.
Costanza et al. wrote that paper to convince policymakers of the importance of conserving our natural environments. They argued that we destroy natural ecosystems because we don’t realize their value to our economy. Now, we’re realizing we don’t spend nearly enough time outside for what good it would do to us, and yet it’s free. Perhaps because it is free.
You know what else is free? Public libraries.
I bet you’ve heard this said a million times. Public libraries are a resource that is generally underused for what unbounded amounts of good it would do us as a society — we don’t read enough books. We want better empathy, higher literacy rates, improved standardized testing scores, creativity, innovation. Reading would improve our competency in all of the above — but we don’t want to read.
Reading would also do us Duke students a lot of good individually. From reduced stress, to better sleep, to improved imagination, reading is a cure-all. Much like spending time in nature, it’s difficult to adopt this habit and not reap its benefits.
But we still seem unconvinced. Most of the use gotten out of public libraries is by the same few regular bookworms.
College campus libraries are made so accessible that inevitably some students use them to their full potential. Think of how Perkins noticeably fills up during finals season. But most students ignore their intended use. Except for a cozy study spot, our campus libraries’ intended purpose as banquets of knowledge is entirely forgotten.
One free and beneficial resource that Duke students make good use of is the C1 bus: direct transportation between our two campuses — East and West — on an electric vehicle that only partially shakes the sanity out of its passengers with its violent sways. But Duke essentially removed all other options for East campus residents. Walking takes too long to make it on time to class. There’s no bike lane. There are close to no parking options on West. Cars don’t even have access to Chapel Drive. So we take the bus.
But isn’t it weird? If freshmen could drive to West and park there for free, the C1 would become a ghost bus. And yet it'd be more convenient than facing morning traffic. And yet it’s free.
The hardest thing to realize is that someone's underappreciating our presence in their life. While the C1 bus won’t be offended if students stop making use of its services, we immediately notice if our friends don’t match our investment in the friendship. We question why we’re always the ones to text first.
Growing up, we start to realize that the most valuable thing we have is our time. We allocate each hour carefully amongst our interests — our classes, our clubs, our loved ones — and maybe a couple to sleep each night. Our time is scarce, and we cherish it.
Yet it's so easy to underestimate the value of someone else waiting for our class to end to go to dinner together. From our point of view, waiting for us costs them nothing. But we know the value of our time — it’s gold. We just don’t realize others must feel the same way.
And it’s not just the living time of those around us. It’s also the time of the geniuses, architects and artists of the past, who gave up their lives to enable us to live as we do today.
After reading "East of Eden" this summer, I remember feeling so grateful for old Steinbeck, whose work he did in the 1950s gave me — and so many around me — such pleasure today. The awards he received for his novel at the time might have been mighty. But compared to how many American Literature classrooms he encaptivated, how many minds he opened, he was undoubtedly undercompensated. He might as well have done the work for free. Most artists do. Even now famous pieces — The Starry Night, Girl with a Pearl Earring, Impression, Sunrise — were hardly worth a penny when they were first finished.
Through the books he left us, I can indulge in Steinbeck’s illuminating ideas “for free.” It only costs me the time it takes to read the book. It cost Steinbeck his lifetime. “But books aren’t fr—” Stop. Stop right there. Go back and read my previous point about public libraries.
My Econ 101 professor used to openly criticize the pass/fail system of the class during lectures. He thought that fulfilling requirements for the class was too easy — he called it the “pass/pass” system. This effort to lower the barriers to entry for the Economics major here at Duke failed to make me realize just what I had been given: a golden opportunity. For once, higher education became what it should be all about — learning for its own sake.
Yet that “free” opportunity slipped right by me. Instead of wanting to learn, I wondered what I was doing, sitting through those lectures. I took regular breaks in the middle of class to go to the bathroom and roam the halls.
I can now see that my attitude was all wrong: Instead of seeing the class as a free break, I should have leaned into attending lectures just to learn. I should have cherished simply listening to the professor without the need to frantically take notes or worry about what I must learn for the final exam.
Learn from my mistake: Don’t get caught in the trap. Just because something is free to you doesn't mean it isn't valuable. Don’t underestimate what you are given.
Because, just like that, you’ll wake up one day and there'll be no free bus that takes you from home to work every day. There’ll be no one that cleans your bathroom for you. Things will change and you will lose a friend and you will find yourself wishing you had been more thankful for the time they gave up for you.
That's the bummer about "free" things — they’re invisible. You don't realize you have them until they're gone.
Anna Garziera is a Trinity sophomore. Her pieces typically run on alternate Tuesdays.
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