The skill of enjoying life

Jeroen

It seems to me that one of the essential life skills is enjoying life itself. It is something we can learn, from being around other people who have mastered the art. We go with a friend to a museum, and after we have seen the exhibits we sit down with a coffee in the restaurant, and perhaps with our coffee we might have a piece of carrot cake. All small pleasures that we seek out, but there is a certain rhythm to it, a bonhomie.

Even when you do not seek them out, life places these things generously on our path. The scent of grass after the rains have passed, the glorious colours of a sunset, the pleasure of moving your body while bicycling. All you have to do is be present for them, maintain a kind of meditative awareness, and they come to visit you.

It becomes more difficult when we think of some of the greater pleasures. Our loved ones, children or parents or close spiritual friends, when they leave us because people do die, we feel the gaps they leave behind, and for weeks and months we feel as if something is missing, or that they could just come around the corner.

That is when we notice we have grown used to them, and our lives were shaped to fit their presence, like an old shoe around its masters foot. However much we try to hold their presence loosely, and not cling, in the end there is a period of adjustment to their absence which is inescapable.

Bunks

@Jeroen said:
It seems to me that one of the essential life skills is enjoying life itself. It is something we can learn, from being around other people who have mastered the art. We go with a friend to a museum, and after we have seen the exhibits we sit down with a coffee in the restaurant, and perhaps with our coffee we might have a piece of carrot cake. All small pleasures that we seek out, but there is a certain rhythm to it, a bonhomie.

The chance would be a fine thing!

We look to the Northern Hemisphere (and other parts of Australia) and see people going out and doing all the things that we were able to do last summer. Visit friends and family, go to museums, watch sport live, etc.

Anyways, I’m a month or so it should be over. We are counting the days…..

Sorry to hijack your post. Just needed a rant. Sometimes you don’t appreciate what you’ve got until it’s taken away!

Shoshin1

The skill of enjoying life

...Is finding contentment with what you already have and not craving for what you don't have...

I guess one could sum it up in a word "appreciation"

Bunks

@Shoshin1 said:

The skill of enjoying life

...Is finding contentment with what you already have and not craving for what you don't have...

I guess one could sum it up in a word "appreciation"

Thanks for the reminder ❤️

federica

The skill of enjoying life is to be able to determine what you can hold on to, and what you can let go. The latter far outweighs the former....