If you realized how powerful your thoughts are, you would never think a negative thought.

Peace Pilgrim

Experience is not what happens to you,
it is what you do with what happens to you.

Aldous Huxley

We have the tool of thought within us to create a thousand joys or a thousand ills.

James Allen

Jeff Keller is the President of Attitude is Everything, Inc.  For more than 17 years, Jeff has delivered presentations on attitude and motivation to businesses, groups and trade associations throughout the United States and abroad.  Jeff is also the author of the highly acclaimed book, Attitude is Everything. For more information, go to http://www.attitudeiseverything.com

Autumn Thoughts
Jim Sincock

Summer seems to have slipped by pretty fast this year.  As I’m out hiking, I’m already seeing aspen leaves and undergrowth changing colors.  Fall is sneaking it’s way into our neck of the woods (and it seems early since I’m writing this in mid-August).  The nights are getting cooler, and it is getting harder to crawl out of bed on these cool mornings.   I know a frost is right around the corner, and that won’t sit well with the late bloomers in my garden.

As summer passes,  I think about how things seem to pass by more quickly the farther we get on our journey through life.  As a kid, I seem to remember summers lasting a lot longer than they seem to here in my forties.  Perhaps it was that timeless quality we generally have when we are kids.  A time in our lives where we are really living in the moment, or more so than we do as adults.  Zen Mind, Beginners mind.  Summers out of school, outside playing until you’re ready to collapse.  While I’m sure I had a lot of “Wouldn’t it be cool to do this or that?” sort of ideas back as a kid, but I don’t recall too many agendas and schedules.

But it seems as we become adults we lose our sense of wonder and our sense of living in the present moment.  We are caught in the rat race, trying to make a living, have relationships and friendships, raise families, plan for retirement, or trying to cram every conceivable event or trip into our lives before that final breath.

While things seem to pass quickly, like this summer, I can no longer bring myself to pack every waking moment of the day with activities.  As I see people rushing around, always checking their watch, or staring blankly at their cell phones (whether they are getting reception or not), I feel they are missing a lot of the beauty in our mountain areas.  I feel that because I’ve been there myself in the past. I see people driving through my little town at breakneck speed, rushing to whatever they are always rushing to.  Aside from them driving way to fast, and endangering children or pets who may be playing in the dirt road, they are missing the beauty around them.  Perhaps they’ve seen it all before since many have lived there for far longer than me.  But, even though I’ve only made this same drive maybe a thousand times, I still see things I hadn’t noticed before.  Yeah, doing the speed limit, and trying to be present in life can help you to see a lot of things.  I’m always seeing some cabin tucked away that I hadn’t seen before, or a hawk drifting through the sky, or the little old man sitting on his porch waving as I drive by.  Take your time and experience the life around you, it’s a lot less stressful.

Our culture has become such a multitasking society that it is hard to be present in our lives when we are trying to do several things and once, and most likely thinking about the past, present and future at the same time.  While my job might require multitasking, I just want to monotask in my personal life.

Any time I get into that mode where I’m moving too fast or trying to do too many things at once I catch myself and slow down and try to just enjoy one thing at a time.  Going for a casual hike, noticing the leaves blowing in the breeze, stopping to listen to the birds singing, or sitting by the creek, all that helps to bring yourself into the present, and slow down.

As summer continues to slip past, I’m content to relax and enjoy watching the season change while I’m out hiking, backpacking, or biking, or just hanging out in my yard reaping the harvest from my garden, or just sitting and listening to the sounds of nature.  Enjoy your autumn!

Originally published in The Mountain Neighbor, September, 2006.  Jim Sincock grew up in Kenosha, Wisconsin.  He studied fine art photography at the Milwaukee Center for Photography and Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design.  After college he ran his own commercial photo studio in Milwaukee and later in Boulder, Colorado.  Jim is currently living in Eldora, Colorado, and working as a graphic designer in Nederland, CO.

Is "good" necessarily good?  Is "bad" necessarily bad?  It's considered good to be beautiful, but many people through being beautiful have ruined their lives and the lives of others.  It's considered bad to be unattractive, but because of being unattractive, many have come to concern themselves with matters more important than surface appearance and have gone on to make something Special of themselves--in quite a few cases becoming Beautiful in the process.

It's considered good to be healthy and strong, but many energetic people lose their health and strength by taking what they have for granted, not knowing what it's like to be old and depleted--and therefore not taking care of themselves--until it's Too Late.  It's considered bad to be ill and weak, but many have responded to such conditions by examining their lives and changing their ways of doing things, thereby building up their health and strength to remarkable degrees.  Unattractiveness, illness, and weakness have many valuable lessons to teach to those willing to learn from them.

It's considered good to live a long life, but many spend their long lives sitting and complaining, watching television, describing their operations, and retelling for the umpteenth time what Aunt Gertrude said forty years ago.  Many Great Achievers died young, yet lived every minute of the time they had.  As Chuang-tse pointed out, even death itself may not necessarily be bad:

In the meantime, we can look clearly at our lives and the life around us, and Live.  Before we start crying and praying to the Universe to take away our Trials and Tribulations, we might more closely examine what it has given us.  Maybe the "good" things are tests, possibly rather difficult ones at that, and the "bad" things are gifts to help us grow:  problems to solve, situations to learn to avoid, habits to change, conditions to accept, lessons to learn, things to transform--all opportunities to find Wisdom, Happiness, and Truth.

When we see Things As They Are, we find a world of Magic--the world that has been there all along.  And we find ourselves wondering how we ever missed it.