Would the world be different if we took the time to practice more gratitude and appreciation? If we sent a little “Thank You” note to the neighbor who helped us out, or to the friend who was there for us in an hour of need; if we sent a “thinking of you” note to someone we have not connected with in a while.
Do you smell the roses?
Do you take time, a minute here and a minute there, to inhale the beauty around us, and to digest our beautiful world in which every single creature has its own, important place?
I read about a film called “365 Grateful” that is being produced. It has a website; in the introductory video, Hailey, a young woman, is smiling, laughing, and full of happiness and gratitude. The first thing to notice about it is a big, huge smile, and the sounds of a good belly laugh!
In 2008, Hailey was fighting depression. She was wondering how she could help herself, and decided to look at life positively, one day at a time. For 365 days, on each day, she took a photograph of something she felt grateful for, a beautiful bird, a book she was given, a picture, a flower, the beach. Can you imagine how difficult this must have been for her to do while she was suffering from depression?
Over the following months, Hailey slowly became better; not only did she improve physically, her entire life changed!
When I was sitting on the pub’s patio, enjoying an evening of talk, good food and a nice, cold beer one evening, a bit further on, a couple, both of them ignorant of their surroundings, was typing on their Blackberry’s. It looked as if they were texting each other. I was inclined to think that they had lost the ability to speak. Even after their dinner arrived, one of them continued texting.
Many of us have made phone calls while sitting in a restaurant, or sent text messages; I admit it, I am guilty too. We race through life in a constant bubble of noise: cars tooting their horns, music everywhere … boom, boom, boom; people shouting. We hammer on our phones’ keyboards as if our life depended on it; so many obligations, and we are conditioned to respond to all demands – immediately please!
Our world is not going to fall apart if we take time for ourselves, just a wee bit every day. Let’s sit in the garden, deeply inhaling the smell of a beautiful flower; listen to a bird chirping a song for us, or give a big smile to someone we don’t know. Let’s open our hearts to our beautiful world in gratefulness.
We are the designers of our own life; let’s live it consciously, with appreciation of the beauty that is around us, and compassion.
I would love to hear how you escape the hectic of your life. Do you take time to smell the roses?