Taking Time to Look Around

When you're always looking straight ahead, it is easy to start missing out on life that you can experience around you. We all have goals, achievements, and responsibilities we'd like to reach, and lists and plans that we make. At the same time, we also have pressures and expectations, ones that can at times become unreasonable and force us forward not with real motivation, but instead with fear. There are times when we may be "doing all the right things" and going through the motions of reaching the next goal or milestone. Meanwhile, the body, nervous system, and senses--in other words, the real you--may be requesting that you simply pause to look around for a bit first.

You won't get too behind by just stopping and checking out what's going on in your environment. Whether it's in your house, nature, a new place, an activity that you miss doing, or your health. When you look around, you're acknowledging that even though there's a path you're following, it's not just a straight shot arrow and instead also involves the space around you and within you.

Also, when you're looking around you don't always have to define what you see, form an opinion about it, post it on social media, take a picture and record it, or even tell anyone. Today more than ever, we're tempted to do that with many things that we see or experience. The experience is enough as it is. It might just be for you.

What do you risk by not looking around from time to time? You'll never know until you look. It may be scary to leave the path alone for a little while, for fear that you might miss out on something important. Life's not like that though. It offers the time and space to look around, maybe not all the time or everyday, but enough that it's worthwhile to take advantage of it. What do you see around you, that you may not have looked at for a while?