I’m really enjoying the quiet around me right now.  I was sitting here leaning into my laptop and reading some of the posts on Freshly Pressed and the stillness around me seemed to give me a little knudge.  Then I heard a bird chirp outside followed by Biggie, our bulldog, breathing softly.  Usually I like to have some kind of background noise, like music or tv, when I’m doing something.  I find that when I’m writing though the tv is too distracting because the constant chatter takes me away from the mood I was in that inspired me to write in the first place.  

And this brings me to my topic for today, that I want to enjoy each moment and really take in the beauty in the simple things.  I guess in a way it also goes with the Daily Post topic of the day, how do you stay focused?  At least for me, one way to stay focused is when I’m truly enjoying the moment.  Another thing that has helped me with this is when I think of my zen meditation, because it makes me mindful of when I begin to get distracted.  Sometimes it’s so easy for me to get lost in a thought and rather than, for example, enjoy a good conversation with someone, I would instead start thinking of something that happened earlier or reminding myself  of something to do later, and I would become as far as possible from enjoying the moment.  How disrespectuf not only to the person sitting next to me and to myself.

Today I had a really insightful conversation with my husband and after he listened to me I was focused on what he was sharing and found myself completely present in the moment and enjoying the simplicity of our conversation.  He reminded me about something we learned in Zen, that it’s not so much the situation that happens, but our relationship to the situation.  I took a personal growth workshop not too long ago and one of the things we learned was around the same lines.  That every situation is neutral, but it’s how each person reacts to it that makes it a moment of happiness, sorrow, anger, etc.   Hmmm, I seem to be going off topic a bit here, so let me get back on track.

I find that I get more out of life when I enjoy each moment and that it’s the simple things that can mean so much. One of those moments that I want to share about right now is when I’m walking our bulldog.  My favorite thing is when I push out the thoughts in my mind and I take a deep breath in and look around at the trees and the different flowers and plants, and I often see beautiful things that I hadn’t noticed before.  And then when I look down at Biggie and I see his cute little walk and his booty shaking I always giggle out loud and I think to myself, thank you God for this moment.  This happens to me quite often and in different situations.  Maybe tomorrow I’ll share another. 

I hope today you will enjoy a simple moment as well.