3. Intentional living Journal challenge

Have you ever stopped for just one moment and realised or thought about how quickly life is going? How quickly we want everything? There is no waiting. Everything from fast food to drive through coffee. We no longer cue at the bank, that's an online app, even our groceries are delivered directly to our front door mostly. Our mail is now email. Someone else walks our dog, gardeners mow our lawns and some of us even have someone else take care of our children- why ? So that we can spend more time working on something for someone else.

The more we permit this act of self service the more we are losing our connection with one another. Interaction with bank tellers, shop assistants and table servers is more than simply a service, it is more than enabling others to have employment, it is communicating it is connection and it is about getting to know one another, it is building relationships.

If we lose the ability to keep these connections flowing soon our relationships will not exist and a robot will be our only form of interaction. Our children and our grandchildren are so focused on social media as their communication with one another that they are losing the skills of interaction, they find it difficult to hold a conversation in any social gathering, what does this say about our future generations?

I read a story about a young woman who's elderly Father was not so mobile and she offered to bring him groceries etc to help him and he refused her help, she couldn't understand why. So he explained how although he was slower on his feet that getting out to the village he lived in was not a chore, it was exercise, going into the bank was conversation with the teller who knew him by name. If he didn't go to the grocers once a week the grocer would not have known that something was wrong when he didn't show up and had that not happened his daughter would not have been notified that he had fallen and and who knows potentially he could have died alone.

When we look at our new normal through those eyes, life looks a whole lot different.

For me I am focusing on taking more time to be observant. Looking at things and experiences that perhaps I did not acknowledge before. For me life is like a hot cup of tea, if we dont let that tea bag brew for a few moments then the taste is not so delicious, just like life. If we do not take the time to acknowledge and drink in the experience it can not possibly be so sweet.

It is high time that we begin acknowledging the sights, the sounds, the smells, the tastes and the feelings of every moment that passes before we get to that stage in life where it is too late to appreciate the beauty that surrounds us, to be grateful for the experiences we have already experienced and to pay attention to all that will come in our future.

With that in mind, I have decided that my third challenge this year should be an introduction to that.

For the next 30 days, I am setting myself a journaling challenge. If you are new to journaling this is a fun what to introduce it into your daily routine, and if you like to write then perhaps this can be a way to exercise your literary juices.

Soo the challenge is to begin your journal entry with - Today I Noticed ....

Take whatever time you need, it can be a long or short entry, document what you noticed today. Not only does this help you to become more present in your surroundings it will make you more aware of what you have been missing, perhaps it will give you more reason to be grateful for all that you have.

I look forward to hearing how you get on with this challenge, please stop by often to keep me updated with your experiences.

xxLei

SLOW DOWN AND ENJOY LIFE, IT'S NOT ONLY THE SCENERY YOU MISS BY GOING TOO FAST- YOU ALSO MISS THE SENSE OF WHERE YOU ARE GOING AND WHY - ANON