Good day, team,
This week’s challenge comes from “Walden” by Henry David Thoreau. I offer it for this Thanksgiving week because it has helped me to be grateful. In this fast-moving, turbulent world, Thoreau’s words remind me of the importance of stopping to notice the wonders and abundance that are all around me.
“There are times when I could not afford to sacrifice the bloom of the present moment to any work, whether of the head or hands. I love a broad margin to my life. Sometimes, in a summer morning, having taken my accustomed bath, I sat in my sunny doorway from sunrise till noon, rapt in a revelry, amidst the pines and hickories and sumacs, in undisturbed solitude and stillness, while the birds sang around or flitted noiseless through the house, until by the sun falling in at my west window, or the noise of some traveler’s wagon on the distant highway, I was reminded of the lapse of time.
“I grew in those seasons like corn in the night, and they were far better than any work of the hands would have been. They were not time subtracted from my life, but so much over and above my usual allowance. I realized what the Orientals mean by contemplation and the forsaking of works. For the most part, I minded not how the hours went. The day advanced as if to light some work of mine; it was morning, and lo, now it is evening, and nothing memorable is accomplished. Instead of singing like the birds, I silently smiled at my incessant good fortune. As the sparrow had its trill, sitting on the hickory before my door, so had I my chuckle or suppressed warble which he might hear out of my nest.”
Your challenge? Take some time over the holidays to stop and notice the world around you.
Have a good week,
Kathleen
Kathleen Doyle-White
Pathfinders Coaching
(503) 296-9249
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