I looked at my list of tasks as my friend and I entered the store. Shopping for groceries was only our first stop of several. I was mentally planning our itinerary when my friend suddenly stopped one step into the produce section.
“Look,” she said waving her hand to encompass the whole scene. “Everything we need to live is here.”
Her comment shot me back into the moment. In the center of the floor stood several large tables brimming with colorful produce. On one, tomatoes and onions, shiny bell peppers, ruffled heads of lettuce and ears of sweet corn. On another, bunches of red and green grapes and peaches, apples and pears. Each table’s contents were arranged with artful care. On lighted shelves behind them relishes and cheeses, specialty items, salads and drinks beckoned.
“I love the way you notice things like that,” I told my friend. She has a real knack for appreciation, one of the choices for happiness we all can make.
The key is noticing what you value.
She notices how things are designed, how they work. She goes through the world with an appreciative heart, and points out the cleverness of a tool’s design, the quality of materials, the efficiency or kindness of someone’s act, and says so.
Happy people are like that. They look for things to value in the present moment. That’s a key: Looking for what’s valuable right now, in the immediate present. What’s good here? What’s true? What’s beautiful? What’s alive in me right now?
Embracing the Contrasts
One way to do this is to look at your life as if it’s a movie, and the present moment is the movie’s current scene.
It may not be a pleasant one; it might be a tragedy or drama. But you can still appreciate it as a scene in your unique life—being fully conscious of what’s occurring, fully aware of what you’re experiencing and embracing it as a part of the totality of your life.
Genuinely happy people don’t deny life’s sorrows and disappointments. They appreciate the reality of them and experience their meaning and depths. But they equally embrace life’s delights and moments of beauty and goodness.
They’re aware of the contrasts that make up life’s diversity, and of the way the contrasts contribute to life’s richness and mystery.
Because of their total immersion in their lives, happy people learn that no experience is wholly good or wholly bad. It’s all a mix. And all of it contains something to be appreciated once you choose to see it.
Sharing the Good Stuff
Happy people actively look for things to appreciate in others and they share their appreciation in words. They let others know when they see their good qualities in action—their humor, their kindness, their courage, their creativity.
Sometimes they appreciate how well someone deals with their struggles and fears. And because they share what they appreciate in others, they build stronger relationships—in their workplaces, with their children, with their partners, and with friends.
They even disarm their adversaries by expressing sincere appreciation of their strengths. “Well done!” “Good move!”
They brighten the day for strangers by mentioning something the other has done well. “That was so kind of you!” “You packed that so efficiently!”
You never know when a simple comment will entirely change someone’s day.
As poet Elizabeth Barret Browning said, “Earth’s crammed with heaven.” Turn up your sense of appreciation this week and prove for yourself the truth in her words. You might just find your world transformed.
Warmly,
Susan
Image by Dhanesh Damodaran from Pixabay