Can you actually see
what’s around you? I mean, can you truly see what resides in your surroundings?
Can you see the little
ladybird in the grass? Can you hear the bird tweeting in the tree? Did you see
that cloud that looked like a dinosaur?
It’s 2015 and we all
lead extremely busy lives. Or so it seems. We rush to work/school/college – we
wake up, exercise, get changed quickly, have a quick look at the news and we’re
out the door. We get to work and are heads are down for the majority of the
next eight hours before we jump in the car once more to head home/to a
meeting/to the gym. When we get through the door and kick our shoes off, we
make some food, watch some TV, read and head to bed before doing the same thing
the next day.
The hours turn into
days and the days quickly turn into weeks and months before we even have a
moment to sit down and contemplate what we’ve been doing, what we’ve
accomplished and where we are in our lives right now. Everything turns into a
blur of travel, work and sleep.
This has really come
to fruition in my life recently.
University does go by
quickly but at least you kind of feel as if you have some sort of control over
your life. You get to organise your own days – your work schedule, your social
life and you also don’t really have to travel far. Your friends surround you,
so planning to meet with them isn’t a struggle as you’re all basically living
on the same time – there are no rigid work hours that you all have to
negotiate. You have some time to
breathe, even if it doesn’t seem that way when you have essay, dissertation and
presentation deadlines.
After finishing my
exams I went straight into full-time work doing a job that I love and right now
wouldn’t change for the world. However, months of travelling a 100 miles a day
(three hours on the road) occasionally catches up on me. Come Friday I am
exhausted. It’s not like “oh I feel a bit tired”, I mean to the point where my
body hurts. But that’s a part of life – a part of a working life.
What travelling so far
each day, working and exercising does is that it doesn’t give you much time to
appreciate life – the little things in life. It’s easy to lose perspective. All
of a sudden being stuck in traffic for ten minutes on the motorway becomes the
worst thing in the world. When in reality, it doesn’t matter one bit. Yes,
maybe you’ll be home later than usual or you might be late to the gym, but
really, who cares?
Your heart is still
beating and you are breathing – everything else is a bonus.
I have been watching LadieDottie
on YouTube for a few years and Datev and her boyfriend Kevin seem to centre me
as a human being once more. Their appreciation for the little things in life is
inspiring. They see beauty in all that surrounds them – the mountains, the wildlife,
the sea. They take time to stop, get out of the car and appreciate how cool a
building looks or how beautiful a view is – they take time to appreciate life.
This is something I
feel that we regularly forget to do and even how to do it.
Personally I am going
to make a conscious effort to appreciate everything beautiful and positive
that surrounds me. That cute little sheep in the field, the red-orange colour
of the sky as the sun sets, the sound of that bird flapping its wings as it
flies over head – these are all things that make up our surroundings and are
things that have the ability to improve us as people and help relax us.
They maybe small
things but they have the ability to change our perspective on life immensely.
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