“I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in
themselves. The ideals that have lighted my way, and time after time have given
me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Kindness, Beauty, and
Truth.”
—Albert Einstein
“It is in the details of life that beauty is revealed, sustained, and nurtured.”
—Sarah Ban Breathnach, Simple Abundance
Here are a few small
things I love:
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| Monarch butterfly caterpillar on milkweed |
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| That nose |
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| Those freckles |
What are a few of your favorite small things?
Um…cultivate what?
I just came across the term pronoia recently. Have
you heard it before? According to Rob Brezsny’s book Pronoia: The Antidote for Paranoia, “It’s the understanding that the universe is
fundamentally friendly. It’s a mode of training your senses and intellect so
you’re able to perceive the fact that life always gives you exactly what you
need, exactly when you need it.” Wikipedia has this to add: “A person
experiencing pronoia feels that the world around them conspires to do them
good.”
We often don’t have much control over what happens to us,
but we do have the ability to choose how we see the world. If we find what we
look for, and we get what we expect, why not expect the best?
Here are five ways to cultivate pronoia:
As corny and simple as it seems, count your blessings.
Health, family, friends, home, comfort in all its forms—your most basic
blessings are the most precious…and often the most overlooked.
Choose your input carefully. With what kind of
images, stories, and news do you feed your mind? The frightening, sad, ugly,
and negative? Or the beautiful, uplifting, joyful, and positive?
On a related note, actively search for beauty. Look
for it in nature, music, art, architecture, food, literature, and so on. What
do you find beautiful and uplifting? (For more about the importance of
beauty in our daily lives, click here.)
Mahatma Gandhi said, “Be the change that you wish to see in
the world.” If you want the world to be a nicer place, do something nice—for
yourself and for someone else. In this way, you’re an active part of the
conspiracy to do good.
Let go of judgment when seemingly bad things happen.
Life may conspire to give you what you need, when you need it, but it doesn’t
always give you what you want, when you want it. (And sometimes it gives
you what you definitely don’t want.) You can waste a lot of time
bemoaning circumstances you don’t like, or you can listen to some widsom from
Captain Jack Sparrow: “The problem is not the problem; the problem is your
attitude about the problem.”
Seen on the streets of Blue Ridge, GA:
What will you make today?
As I write this, I look out my office window at the
greenness of spring in Florida —our
oak trees have mostly leafed out, my crepe myrtle has the tiniest bronze
leaflets clinging to its bare limbs and I know in time it will bear ruffley
lavender flowers. A cardinal is visiting the bird feeder, his red feathers
bright against the greens and browns of the front yard. I’m listening to
acoustic guitar music on Pandora, and I have my window open to smell all that
green leafiness and hear the birds’ songs more clearly. Not only do I enjoy
looking and listening to the beauty around me, I find that it has a calming and
uplifting effect on my mood.
While most people would not argue that beauty is nice, is it something we all need? Best-selling author Piero Ferrucci
thinks it is, and explores that topic in his book Beauty and the Soul: The Extraordinary Power of Everyday Beauty to Heal Your Life.
Ferrucci believes that beauty is an essential ingredient in
a happy, healthy life. He writes, “Beauty plays a central role in our decision
to be here. The more we can perceive
beauty in our surroundings, and also inside us, the more we will feel at home
and glad to exist. Some perceive beauty in the sound of rain and shape of
clouds, in people’s faces and voices, in birdsong and the rustling of leaves.
Some see it in modern design or ancient embroidered silk, in a cathedral’s
stained glass or an advertising poster, in the flowering of intelligence or in
altruism, in musical phrasing or the melodic rhythm of poetry, in the dynamism
of a statue or the lightness of a dance. For such people the world is a place
of great interest, of continuing amazement. Their relation with life is erotic:
They are in love with life.”
Ferrucci also notes that contact with beauty makes us less
angry and anxious, and that Swedish studies indicate that those who attended theater,
movies, concerts and exhibitions have a greater chance of longevity. One
explanation is that beauty stimulates the immune system.
Of course, beauty doesn’t just exist in cultural events and
experiences. Beauty is everywhere—we just need to notice it. To improve our
ability to seek and find beauty, Ferrucci suggests keeping a diary of what we
find beautiful, slowing down and paying more attention to what is all around us
(“Hurry usually obliterates all forms of beauty”), and removing the attitudes
that hamper beauty (“I don’t deserve it, it’s a waste of time, there are better
things to think about…”). As he notes, “Attention is nourishing. Anything we
give our interest to grows and develops. Anything we neglect or ignore
atrophies. Attention is like a spotlight on a theater stage. It gives emphasis.
The world is what it is, but we provide the accent. We look for beauty, give it
our vital interest, create space for it. Then beauty will proliferate for us.”
Beauty lifts up the soul, lightens burdens, gives hope and
inspiration—all things we so desperately need in this world. If we seek beauty
in our lives, we will add to our happiness.
What do you find beautiful? How can you add beauty to your
days?
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| Photo courtesy Adam Jackson |
“People are like stained glass windows, the true beauty can
be seen only when there is light from within. The darker the night, the
brighter the windows.”
—Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
“Summer afternoon, summer afternoon; to me those have always
been the two most beautiful words in the English language.”
—Henry James
It's National Relaxation Day today! Why not celebrate?
It's National Relaxation Day today! Why not celebrate?
Dana Gioia, who served as Chair of the National Endowment
for the Arts, did a marvelous job of bringing the arts to Americans, arguably
the best job that anyone in that position has done. He was a fine poet before
he took that job, and he is a fine poet after. Here’s an example of his recent
work. [Introduction by Ted Kooser.]
Pity the Beautiful
Pity the Beautiful
Pity the beautiful,
the dolls, and the dishes,
the babes with big daddies
granting their wishes.
Pity the pretty boys,
the hunks, and Apollos,
the golden lads whom
success always follows.
The hotties, the knock-outs,
the tens out of ten,
the drop-dead gorgeous,
the great leading men.
Pity the faded,
the bloated, the blowsy,
the paunchy Adonis
whose luck’s gone lousy.
Pity the gods,
no longer divine.
Pity the night
the stars lose their shine.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine.
It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2011 by Dana Gioia, whose most recent book of
poems is Pity the Beautiful, Graywolf
Press, 2012. Poem reprinted from Poetry,
May 2011, by permission of Dana Gioia and the publisher. Introduction copyright
© 2012 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served
as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress
from 2004-2006.
“Everything has its beauty, but not everyone sees it.”
Confucius
“I think the reason we all get up in the morning, whether we know it or not, is that brief moment during the day when we recognize the beauty in something,” writer Penelope Michler observed. I discovered this quote in Sarah Ban Breathnach’s book, Romancing the Ordinary. Breathnach herself continued, “Today recognize one moment of exquisite beauty in your own daily round. Notice it, rejoice in it, and give thanks.”
What was your moment of beauty today?
