Food is an easy way to do this. Just taking a second to marvel at and appreciate the life-containing and life-sustaining beauty of a fresh fruit or vegetable – while washing it, cutting it, smelling it, feeling it, tasting it, chewing and swallowing it, being energized by it – can give as many moments of joy as you remember to take, by eating well and consciously and appreciating what food does for you and how much and in how many ways you can enjoy it.
Breathing is another one that is so easy to take for granted, but so wonderful if attended to and appreciated. Breath sustains us every moment. Paying attantion to air and its value and effects also allow me to pay more attention to and gain more information from smells.
I pause and thank the world for the roses lining my sidewalk every morning when I leave and every evening when I come home, because they give me such pleasure without my having to work for them at all – I didn’t plant them and I don’t maintain them – when so much of my time is sucked into being unhappy with work or worrying about the coming cold and winter and shovelling snow and being late to work and having dry skin and whatever else. But their delicate pink beauty against the backdrop of my neighborhood reminds me, literally, to stop and smell the roses, which I do nearly every time I walk by. It’s a beautiful smell!
