Don’t become ordinary to yourself

Children understand something that adults spend their lives trying to regain.

They can become fascinated by almost anything.

A ladybird on a leaf.

A rainbow in puddle.

The moon by your side while you’re driven home at night.

They ask impossible questions.

Where does yesterday go?

What does the color blue taste like?

They have not yet learned to become bored by miracles.

Then adulthood arrives.

We become busy.

Distracted by a design for life.

We stop looking up.

We stop noticing.

We become so accustomed to the miracle that we no longer see it.

Which brings us to today’s lesson.

Do not allow familiarity to rob you of wonder.

Stand beneath the stars and remember how astonishing it is that you are here at all.

Notice the extraordinary details in ordinary things.

Don’t postpone joy until everything is finished.

It never will be.

There will always be another problem.

Another reason to be busy.

But there will not always be another summer.

Another Christmas.

Another ordinary evening with the people who are here now.

So be awake for it.

Be amazed by it.

And make a habit of noticing the life you would one day give anything to have back.