Appreciate (v): to judge with heightened perception or understanding. Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary
Success Challenge: Observe things you take for granted. A warm cup of coffee when you get to the office, your computer operating as it was intended, the phone working or the person who hands you your ticket at the train station. What would it feel like to be so present that you appreciated that person, place or thing today as you encountered them or it?
For anyone who reads my blog or watches my TV segments , you know that the cornerstone of Positive Psychology is the development of the strength, gratitude. From best I can discern, it is the one strength that if it is not in your top five natural strengths, it is suggested you put forth effort to develop the characteristic.
It was in Echart Tolle’s book, that I first took to heart the notion that gratitude starts with noticing at the most minute level the significance of things that I had not even noticed before. One of Tolle’s practice exercises was to consciously look down at your feet, one step at a time, when you walked up and down a flight of stairs. It was a simple exercise yet, of course, not easy.
It has been eight years since I committed to that practice (most of the time) and my ability to appreciate the small things in life has definitely grown.
This week something happened that drove that lesson home. Our trash gets picked up on Friday of each week (you can’t get more mundane a daily activity than that). My husband usually puts the trash out (yes, I know that is a stereotype!) This week he was traveling and the thought of putting the trash out did not even cross my mind – until, of course, I was working on my computer at 7:15 a.m. Friday and I was distracted by the honking of a big truck’s horn. I immediately wondered what that was about. My next thought was, “oh, no…it’s trash day”. It then all connected, the honking was intended to get my attention because the trash men had noticed I did not have my pail out. I quickly got down to the garage, got the trash out to a neighbor’s home across the street and waited for the trash men to circle around. When they did, I thanked them for noticing I had not put out my trash. They beamed, and in turn I experienced a feeling of appreciation too.
As I walked back to my house I sarcastically thought, “what does it say about my life that the trash men honking to reminder is enough to make me feel happy?” Then I smiled and thought, it means that for that moment – that NOW – I had reaped the rewards of Practicing the Power of Now.
With appreciation, Dr. Success
