It’s the day off you’ve been waiting for. Meteorological spring has officially sprung!
The weather could be golden and enchanting … the kind that makes you open your eyes and smile with a song in your heart.
Instead you wake up to a gloomy grey morning. No sunshine in sight.
The sky is a sheet of dim dullness that seems to promise nothing but more of the same winter chill you hoped to leave behind.
THE ~1 MINUTE INVITATION:
You are now gently invited to look at this grey morning differently.
In ONE MINUTE, and three steps:
- Go to a window or door
- Open a window or door. You might even step outside.
- JUST LISTEN
Listen to the sounds of spring you couldn’t hear from bed, inside, with the windows and doors closed.
Listen to the wind or the stillness you wouldn’t be able to hear inside through the walls with your eyes closed or TV on.
Maybe there is a gentle rain falling so softly you could not have heard it dancing on your roof through the ceiling if you were still lying under it. Maybe the rain is heavy enough you did hear it; how does it sound different now that you’ve removed some of the barrier between you?
Listen to the busy chorus of birds, so different from the sounds of a month ago: innumerable little whistles, clicks, whirring signals, and tiny buzzing chattering voices from the funny throats of busy avian bodies.
Just listen for thirty seconds, or three breaths in and out, noticing how the flavor and temperature of air outside by the open door or window smells and feels: different from the air inside where you were sleeping. Sense how these blankets of grey morning sounds and air are different from the blankets that comfort you in bed.
THE 1 MINUTE DIFFERENCE
Congratulations! You just took a one minute trip to a different physical and mental destination.
You decided to get up and do something differently than you otherwise would have today. Your one decision to change and commit to doing that first hardest single minute of time doing something differently are admirable.
Do not diminish the effort you made; your decision, resolve, and first minute of time trying to do something differently is worth recognition, pride and hope.
You made time to listen, to breathe, and to pay attention to things you don’t usually make time for. This difference opened up a whole world you usually ignore, and shattered the sameness of a day that would have otherwise been like so many gloomy days before it.
Every time you try something new, or do something differently that breaks your routine — EVEN IF IT’S JUST FOR A MINUTE — you add time to your life that vastly outweighs the one single minute you invested in doing it. Experiential TIME SLOWS DOWN when you break out of your comfortable routine.
All it takes is one minute to live life differently.