How do you value anything over time?

Have you ever thought about how you value items, people or generally what you have or own over time. This simple graph illustrates the general human behaviour.

I’ve broken it down to three stages:

The Desire Stage
The Fulfilled Stage
The Losing Stage

The Desire Stage

This is where a desire or wish crops up and we have this strong urge to own or have something or someone. It could even be a desire to see a friend whom you have not seen in a long time.

At this point, we seem to put a very high value to whatever the object of our desire is. Maybe you are dying to get that latest iPhone or any other gadget. All of a sudden, this becomes the most important thing to you and there seems to be so much value to it. Once you attain this object of desire, you move on to the next stage

The Fulfilled Stage

At this stage, we now own the object of our desire or have fulfilled our wishes. We still hold high value towards this. For example, you have just purchased the brand new Volkswagen you were seeking. The first few months or even year, you will be extremely careful on how the car is handled, wash it,polish it often. But just like everything else, after some time, this becomes part and parcel of your daily life and you no longer hold as much value to it as when you first started.

Assuming you suddenly temporarily lose this object. Eg. Maybe your car broke down and is now in a workshop,stage three steps in.

The Losing Stage

At this point, you have suddenly lost the object of your desire. As mentioned earlier, perhaps your car broke down and was now in a workshop. Now, the value of this item goes up. You realize that life becomes so difficult without this object. Maybe it was a loved one whom you had temporarily ignored (while in stage 2) and this person has now moved far away and is no longer accessible as before. Your value for this person/object goes up so high, perhaps even higher than what is was in Stage 1.

These three stages are the process of creation, maintenance and destruction.
Not many have been able to look at this trinity symbolically and understand its significance. Our thoughts are made up of these three stages in rapid succession that it appears to be active in a continuous fashion. Take this as an example and to better understand this process:

I see a poster and have a desire to now watch this movie (Creation)
I go to the cinema and am now watching the movie (Maintenance)
Finished watching the movie, no longer desire for it (Destruction )

Now feel like watching another movie (Creation)

The flow is continuous. In fact, many a times,such thoughts and desires overlap each other that it is difficult to be at peace. This rapid succession and overlapping of thoughts is the theory that the entire world is nothing but an object of illusion came about. I’ll leave that for another day.

Every thought, process, experience in our lives will follow this process. Try it out. Pick a situation or experience in your life and apply this process and see if it fits.

Here is a quote on our mind and thoughts:
Mind is consciousness which has put on limitations. You are originally unlimited and perfect. Later you take on limitations and become the mind.