This week I noticed that chicory was blossoming on the roadside now. I’ve never been particularly fond of it, despite the lovely blue of its flowers. As it it were up to me to judge, I considered the flowers too sparsely spaced on its lanky stems.
Still, it was a marker of the season’s march. And now, here it was, dotting the roadside along with the Queen Anne’s lace and the wild daylilies. I should, I decided, take its picture.
The day I chose to do it was filled with rain until well into the afternoon, and the blossoms had curled inward in a gesture of self-protection. Something about that touched me. I felt a little wave of tenderness wash over me as I hunted for one that had dared to open.
When I found one and focused my camera’s lens on it, I discovered a design far more intriguing than I ever would have imagined. And I walked away with an appreciative smile, grateful for the revelation that looking closely brought me.
Sometimes looking at something differently is all it takes to see in it a treasure that you never suspected was there. The key is to be open to appreciation, to holding an openness to being surprised by wonder, or compassion, or admiration, or delight.
Appreciation for beauty or excellence is one of the character strengths I’ve been mentioning in my last few letters. This quality of appreciation is also described as a capacity for awe, that ethereal feeling that comes when you see how truly something approaches perfection, how it’s just right, exactly as it is.
When we open yourself to being appreciative, everything–and everyone– holds potential for bringing us joy. At the very least, we begin to see how everything is working toward fulfilling its purpose, even when it currently seems to be falling far short. Even when it isn’t as we, personally, would prefer it to be.
Sometimes, as I said, it’s just a matter of looking at things differently. Instead of looking at what’s wrong or upsetting, we can open ourselves to finding what’s good, what’s right, what effort is being made. We can set aside our judgment and our preferences and look to see more of what is there. We can look closer, or from a different angle. We can consider things from a higher perspective, or from one that takes into account the context, or at where things are in terms of their development in time.
A five-year-old’s performance at a dance recital won’t hold the same kind of beauty as that of an accomplished ballerina. But appreciation for it can transform it into one of the dearest things you’ve ever seen.
The old man’s hands may be wrinkled and gnarled. But you can see in them a lifetime of work.
The rioter setting a storefront ablaze may fill us with anger, but we can stand farther off and appreciate his passion and pain and be moved to do what we can to make our nation a more just and virtuous one.
We can learn to appreciate life’s difficult and distressing times for the insights they bring about what we can do, minute by minute, to strive for more harmony, compassion, and excellence in our own lives.
Appreciation teaches us to look within as well as without, to discover what’s good and beautiful about ourselves, and to decide to share those things more fully with the world. So appreciate your kindness, your sense of humor, your discipline, your creativity, your smile. Appreciate your talents and skills, your determination, your honesty, your generosity, your thrift, your faith.
Really. Take the time to do that. Hold open a willingness to see what’s good in you. And treat yourself to appreciating the goodness and beauty and excellence that surrounds you. It’s always there. Sometimes, as the chicory taught me, it’s just a matter of looking at things differently.