I have a doozie for us this week. The past week or two I have really been wondering what it was that I should write about for this blog. Then, like a gift from the heavens, it all happened right in front of me. Leading a chain of events the first thing I saw as I was driving down Ali’i Drive the other day. I saw something that really made me think. I saw a young man walking along the side of the road. He noticed the flowers blooming on some Bougainvilleas. He then acted out one of the most ironic, yet significant, old sayings of all time. He stopped to smell the flowers blossoming. I kind of chuckled to myself as I noticed the irony in what this young man had just done. But then I thought about it… I mean I really thought about it. I drive past those same beautiful pink flowers everyday, twice a day might I add. Had I myself ever even noticed them?
Truth is, no, I really had not.
Then I thought how many more circumstances do I find myself in daily that I end up missing the silver lining of. After I began to do a bit of a personal audit I realized how much I really do miss. I also have a feeling that other people out there fall victim to this as well. I believe that it is in our nature and society now, to get preoccupied. It is so easy to get caught up within our lives and our day to day that we miss what fills the space and time within those days.
Sure, not every day is going to be a “special day” like Christmas or our birthday that is filled with reasons to take it all in. But this should not discredit today for what it is and the beauty that lies within it. I read a statistic that broke down our odds of being born at the exact time into the exact space that we were. That number is 1 in 10^2685000 (bonus points to whomever can actually say that number).
Where am I going with this? What I am getting at is to take in this human experience. Understand that there are good, bad, and everything in between days. There will always be beauty in this life however, no matter the day. Tell me if I am mistaken, but some of w the things that happened in my life that I thought were the worst possible outcomes have led to some of the most beautiful and brilliant experiences yet. So when you take the trip, be mindful of where you are, who you get to be with. When you are out to dinner, notice the person who is waiting on you. Acknowledge the chef in the back of the restaurant who is trying to create art for you and your party. As well as the feelings that you are able to get from the relationships that you have with the folks around you. The beauty that lies among the day to day “struggle”.
Something I have been working on lately is trying to become more internally aware of myself, thus becoming more intentional and observant about what is around me. This can be difficult to do with the world that we live in now. Our attention is constantly pulled this way and that. How often do we get to be with ourselves up in our own head and actually process what we go though and how it truly feels?
I am reading a book currently called Be Useful, Seven Tools For Life by Arnold Schwarzenegger, he touches on this idea a bit. One of the tools he references in his book, and one that he equates a fair amount of his own success to is giving himself space and time. By this he means space and time to think about or get nothing done. This could be going out for a walk or hike. This could mean heading to the beach and lounging in a chair watching the horizon. I think this is something that we as a society are lacking now. The ability and time to just be alone with ourselves. When I say be alone, I don’t mean alone in our room watching videos, tik toks, or reels on our phones. I mean being in a blank non-demanding headspace to help fire up our creativity or inversely having whatever it is out there that we are trying to figure out come and find us.
Written by Nate Konecky R-S