What if that's all I ever need?
I’ve been keeping a ‘Five-Minute Journal’ most days for the last year and a half. The premise is simple - one simple page with a handful of simple questions, to be completed morning and evening.
My favourite part is the evening question: What are three highlights from today?
As I was flicking back through my journal in a fit of reviewing the year, as one tends to do during December/January, I realised that none of my highlights were ‘Made a ton of sales today!’ or ‘Bank account hit x figures’ or ‘Saw x on the scales!’.
Instead they were things like ‘Taking my daughter to school’, ‘Seeing the sun set’ or ‘Twenty minutes in the house on my own today’.
Simple, ordinary, everyday pleasures.
I want to draw my eyes to these simple pleasures more often.
The joy of opening a new tube of paint.
Noticing the beauty of my friend as we have lunch together.
The cup of tea brought up to me by my husband.
A line of poetry in a book.
A brilliant Traitors episode.
An article or book written by a human rather than an AI bot.
The dark pink hellebore that is sitting on the corner of my desk in a small orange glass bud vase, next to a grey clock with it’s never-ending second hand.
The sharing with me of something that breaks my friend’s heart today.
The sound of the rain on the road outside my window as the cars drive by.
There is beauty everywhere.
This question struck me as I re-read my journal:
Why would I not spend more time in appreciation of these simple things? Rather than chasing after the things I want to ‘make happen’ because I think they will make me happy.
If I took this radical approach to life, I would need to change nothing (except stop making plans in my head for all that I want to make happen so I can be here to actually notice when the simple pleasures appear). After all, life is happening every moment and right NOW, in this moment, I can notice beauty.
This is true of every moment. Every. Single. One.
In the same way I can feed my body nourishing life-giving food, I can nourish my soul by simply noticing what is already here and let my heart ache with the beauty of it.
I look up from my desk as I’m writing this. There is a gold embellishment on the painting on the wall in front of me.
I shall photograph it for you.
It is exquisite.
Find out what brings joy to your heart.
Do more of that.
I think this noticing is mine.