Happy Wednesday. It is that time again for Wisdom Wednesday. Today I am concentrating on a virtue that I think a lot of us take for granted. It is the virtue of wonder.
When was the last time you felt that ‘sense of wonder’ in your life? You know the feeling, when every single fiber in your body absorbs your environment in the current moment and becomes electrified with the wonder and enjoyment of all of it.
Recently I perceptively acknowledged this sense of wonder. I was utterly frozen in the moment, and therefore, I have confidence that my mindfulness was raised slightly. I was hiking with my family and in taking a few minutes to contemplate on the massive hill we had just climbed, I casually scanned over the foothills below me. At the very instant in time, my eyes caught the current of the river below.
A piece of drift wood was caught up in the current and was disappearing and reappearing as it traveled downstream until it finally succumbed to the force of the water and disappeared beneath the surface. For the first time in long while I felt intensely that ‘sense of wonder’ for the effortless, yet continuously amazing gifts of our world.
I stood there for a moment thinking about all the magnificence in our world, all our natural gifts and how we have a tendency to take it for granted. I thought about how I never truly slow down enough to genuinely sense the wonder of it all.
We are often so busy and so preoccupied with our own day-to-day activities that we rarely capture the complete essence of our surroundings and the people that we are with. Our thoughts tend to drift to another place or time in the future or the past. But we never actually live for the here and now.
As we age and become increasing more tangled in the web of adulthood, losing the sense of novelty for life and new experience. The sense of wonder, the joy and enthusiasm of each moment is lost on responsibility and maturity. We get engrossed in ‘having and doing’, instead of ‘being’.
It is no coincidence that we develop a boredom with ourselves, those we share our lives with, and our material possessions, and our environment. Our expectations are involuntary planted within us by society, allowing little room for the wonder and possibilities.
Though, on those rare moments when we do discern wonder, this transports us into the present and allows us to acknowledge what is important. It drives us into the reality of just how beautiful life and all its glory truly is. And in that moment the ‘sense of wonder’ returns and we actually wake up and feel enlightened and in sync with people, places, objects, and experience in our life.
I am grateful that my awareness permitted me to perceive my surroundings and to experience this small sense of wonder. I have stay present within my life and to continue to be open and welcoming to new experiences this world presents to me.
When was the last time you felt a ‘sense of wonder’ in your life?
10 Wisdom Wednesday Quotes: Wonder
- “Wisdom begins in wonder.”—Socrates
- “Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit.”—e. e. cummings
- “Never lose the childlike wonder. Show gratitude… Don’t complain; just work harder… Never give up.”—Randy Pausch
- “Look at everything always as though you were seeing it either for the first or last time: Thus is your time on earth filled with glory.” ― Betty Smith
- “Stuff your eyes with wonder. . . live as if you’d drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It’s more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories.”—Ray Bradbury
- “Be aware of wonder. Live a balanced life– learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.”—Robert Fulghum
- “It was through the feeling of wonder that people now and at first began to philosophize.”—Aristotle
- “Everything is extraordinarily clear. I see the whole landscape before me, I see my hands, my feet, my toes, and I smell the rich river mud. I feel a sense of tremendous strangeness and wonder at being alive. Wonder of wonders.” –Buddha
- “Those who wonder discover that this in itself is wonder.”—M.C. Escher
- “Mystery creates wonder and wonder is the basis of the human being’s desire to understand.” –Neil Armstrong
