Take advantage of your senses

We go through our lives on auto-pilot much of the time, don’t we? The people, sights, and sounds around us really blend into the background after a while. Sure, we notice a bright, colorful sunset, an unusual aroma, or an abrupt, unexpected sound, but how much of life passes by unnoticed in our day-to-day routines? I made an effort to really observe things around me for a couple of weeks, and although it wasn’t earth-shattering, it made me aware of how easy it is to ignore my surroundings. Here’s what I did: I spent a few days periodically looking at all of the colors around me. I know it sounds simple, but I had to keep reminding myself to LOOK at them. As a result, I noticed a more colorful world than what usually rushes past me in a blur. Even in a Wisconsin winter, I started to see more colors than the usual whites, grays, and browns. Then I spent a few days making note of shapes, and I found myself seeing so many basic shapes in nature and shapes in buildings where I had been a hundred times before but had never really looked around completely. My world felt much more 3-dimensional than usual. After that, I made an effort to listen to sounds as much as possible. Of course, it’s natural to ignore & filter out a lot of sounds in order to concentrate throughout the course of the day, but just listen to the world outside of your usual bubble sometimes, and it can be very calming. My last experiment was to take in textures of objects that I encounter on a regular basis. Again, it really expanded my observational experience and enriched my days. Try this, or any similar experiment on your own, and hopefully you will notice and appreciate so much that normally slips right by you.