1 Quirky Habit I Recommend You Adopt NOW

In the olden days we used to look down at our feet when we walked.

It was imperative to our safety to avoid stepping in large potholes or sidewalk cracks or on small dogs.

We’d notice “stuff” close to our feet but had little peripheral awareness of anything else.

As an avid traveler, beginning in my early twenties, I found myself looking at Rand McNally maps. [Under 30? Google them – they’re cool.]

I’d notice the needed next turn, but I’d miss a lot of the scenery around me because I was so fixated on not getting lost.

One day, when I was twenty-six and walking the streets of Shanghai, I realized I was so immersed in the map that I was completely missing the moment.

I made it a habit right then to look up. To look above me and way ahead of me and behind me. To stop, absorb and savor all the sensory sensations around me that the map could lead me to but not deliver.

I still make it a habit of stopping and looking up when I walk.

Just last week I looked up and saw this gorgeous masterpiece created by Mother Nature.

Isn’t she a beauty?

And without my quirky habit I would have missed her and so many other magnificent and unexpected delights along my path.

In this modern age we’re still looking down, only now it’s into the blackhole of our phone screens.

Unless you stop and look up, you’ll miss it. You really will.

To looking up and noticing your life and everything magnificent in it,

AmyK