People rarely succeed unless they
have fun in what they are doing.

Dale Carnegie

What lies in our power to do,
lies in our power not to do.

Aristotle

Overcome anger by non-anger, overcome evil by good. Overcome the miser by giving, overcome the liar by truth.

The Dhammapada

Practice radical humility when it comes to your own accomplishments, and give credit everywhere except to your ego.

Wayne Dyer

Leaving Work Behind

One day long ago, I went on a hike with several colleagues on a day that we had off.  We went to a beautiful place, an extraordinary canyon with sandstone walls and ponderosa pines and aspen, along with some amazing rock formations and fascinating plant life.  To make things even better, it was a beautiful autumn day--it had been cold enough recently that some of the water in the canyon was still frozen over, yet it warmed up enough for us to be able to hike in our shirts, without our jackets.  In other words, it was a perfect day in a perfect place for a hike.

Except. . . .

I hadn't hiked with these people before--in fact, I was new to the school, so I didn't really know anyone yet--but I found out very quickly that all they wanted to talk about was school.  They talked about the students and their fellow teachers and the administrators, and they talked about what they did in class and the problems that the students had and the personalities of their colleagues.  Not all of it was positive--in fact, most of their conversation consisted of negative observations that I didn't necessarily want to hear.

It's not part of my nature to tell people what they should or shouldn't talk about--they live their lives and they have their preferences, and I don't feel that it's really my place to try to make them change.  So I tried often to shift the focus of the conversation to where we were and what we were doing then--I asked questions about the rock formations, about the people who used the canyon regularly, about the type of wildlife that lived there.  I tried everything I could to start a conversation about the here and now, but that just wasn't in their comfort zone for some reason--the conversation always immediately went back to school and students and teachers.

It didn't take me long to realize that my efforts were futile, but I also knew that I didn't want to lose the opportunity to enjoy the beautiful settings that surrounded us.  I put a little distance between myself and the others, stopping here to examine some rocks, pausing there to check out an interesting plant, taking the time to enjoy a view that the others didn't even notice at all.  In this way I was able to stay focused on the present moment, on the here and now, rather than focusing on places and people that at the moment were very far away.  And I was able to avoid hearing gossip about people that I really didn't want to hear.

It wasn't a choice that I really wanted to make, but I found out later that I wasn't the only one making it.  Another member of our small group took the opportunity to do some running with her dogs.  At the time, I thought she wanted to run with her dogs, but she told me later that she just had to get away from all the gossip and enjoy her surroundings.  It was good to hear that I wasn't the only one feeling as I did, but a shame to know that the situation had been so negative for someone else, too.

The important part, though, was that she did take the time to herself to enjoy her surroundings, just as I did.  Neither of us felt that we had the right to tell others what they should our shouldn't talk about, but both of us made sure that we did our best to avoid the negative talk and gossip.  Both of us wanted to be where we were, when we were there, enjoying the place that was incredibly beautiful.  And neither of us wanted to bring our job on a hike with us, because when we had a break from our work, it was important to us to rest our minds from the work so that when we got back to school, we'd be coming from a much-more-rested place.

The people we were hiking with weren't bad people at all.  In many ways, they're very helpful and considerate, especially at school.  But as I watch them burn out at school and become less and less positive, I have to ask myself how much of the change is due to the fact that they take their work with them wherever they go, even into beautiful canyons on beautiful autumn days, when work is many miles and many hours away. . . .

The universe is extremely generous.  Beauty abounds in the most surprising locales and within even the most soul-searing experiences.  We simply need to look for beauty and take the time to appreciate and digest what we see.  I agree with Magaret Wolfe Hunerford's quote "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" and would add that beauty is also in the beholder's ability to see.

The other night I was gifted with an unexpected beauty when I took our little dog, Lily, out to her piddle place, a fenced-in area behind the house.  It is hidden from the road and "landscaped" meagerly with rocks.  Its sole decoration is the garbage can.  Expecting the same old bedtime routine, I was blessed by beauty instead.

The streetlight, which goes on and off sporadically, was backlighting the brand-new, fuzzy catkins on our neighbors' aspen tree.  They looked as if they were encased in sparkling ice, shimmering and dancing in the early spring breeze.  An awed "Ahhhhhh" escaped as I exhaled.  While Lily did what she was supposed to do, I turned off our light, etched the beauty of the lighted catkins in my mind's eye, and whispered a prayer of gratitude for a lovely surprise in such an everyday place and action.

While the beauty of the illuminated aspen would have been hard to ignore, I easily could have done just that before making the promise to myself to lead a more mindful, appreciative, and in-the-moment life.

In order to enjoy everyday beauty, you need a desire to see it and the willingness to open your heart to it.  It helps when you go about your day expecting to be blessed by beauty everywhere you look and turn.  Expecting and paying attention to the beauty of the moment will draw to you loveliness beyond imagination.  Appreciating and reveling in beauty can soothe your soul, relax your body, and immerse you in gratitude.

Practice. . . 

*  Expect to find beauty in the strangest places.

*  Allow yourself to look for beauty everywhere.

*  Enjoy and appreciate the beauty you notice.

*  Allow yourself to really see a single aspect of your own beauty.

Throughout your day. . .

*  Notice and appreciate at least one of Mother Nature's everyday beauties.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder expecting to see it.