a snowball of positive energy

new leaves coming out on the rose bush

 Before you realize what has even happened, and without intending to, you can find yourself absolutely sick and tired of the life you're leading.

What little things could be making you sick?  It could be a highway you travel too often, lined with ugly gas stations and strip malls competing for your visual energy, making you feel like all the wildness and mystique has been paved out of the journey.  It could be a lack of money.  It could be a fear that you wouldn't quite know how to be happy even if money were no object.   You might feel trapped in a job that has nothing to do with anything that makes your heart sing.  You might be sleep deprived.  You might have overwhelming questions about love or taxes.  You might feel crowded or bossed by people you feel are really irritating and unappreciative.

But there is something that can help almost any condition of malaise or discontent.  It is something that brings comfort no matter how uncertain you are, and can little by little lift up your spirit for making big positive, refreshing change in your life.  There are breadcrumbs leading you forward as you are learning how to navigate your woes.  All you have to do is look around you - even if you're on the toilet, you might see that you have sufficient (or ample if you're lucky) toilet paper.  I always feel rich when I have 3 or more rolls on the shelf.  Really enjoy the process of making coffee.  (DO NOT try to get the coffee made ASAP so you can run off, spill it, and drink it when it is still too hot, not even tasting it, probably burning your tongue; or get caught up doing something else and forgetting about it until it is cold).  Listen to water boiling while you're cooking.  Really feel the smooth wood of a banister under your palm.

When all else fails, we still have sensory beauty all around us.   A collection of 3-second pauses filled with love and gratitude scattered throughout a day can grow powerful enough over the course of weeks and months to change your life.  The positive energy will snowball.  Too often we wait for happiness or beauty, and we expect it to be loud and splashy.  It might be true that a lot of people live a lot of their lives feeling dreary, waiting for one little week of vacation each year so they can take their shoes off on the beach.  But we are supposed to seek out beauty and inspiration every day.  There is always something beautiful nearby that needs your attention, even if it's small and quiet.

sunlight on my wall, filtered through the old blown glass windowpanes