The great psychologist William James once said that every man who possibly can should force himself to take a holiday of a full month in a year, whether he feels like taking it or not. And we may deem his comment to apply to every woman, too. While this may not be practical or affordable, he had a point. We can become so mechanically work and routine focused that we forget to stop and ‘smell the roses’ in life. We are so busy keeping our nose to the grindstone that we don’t look up and see life’s wonder or beauty any more.
Smelling the roses and losing the knack
When we are born into the world, we learn as we grow. We learn to think, and we learn to construct filters through which we ‘see’. But we also un-learn. We can forget how to feel an immediate and all absorbing connection to the world around us. As adults, we are in danger of appreciating a sunset intellectually as a ‘beautiful sunset’ but not really feeling the beauty of the sunset as a unique event.
Work, work and more work
The US and UK work cultures have us spending longer hours and taking fewer breaks and holidays than many other westernized countries. We are in danger of feeling that any ‘unproductive’ time is ‘wasted’ time. ‘Smelling the roses’ means feeling complete, satisfied, connected to and appreciative of life around us. Not with a view to ‘getting something out of it’ but just to sense the wonder of reality sometimes. Modern people are at risk of losing this vital capacity and so becoming more machine-like and less able to enjoy ourselves. Do we live to work or work to live? Of course, if we can be flexible and work hard but also know how to stop, look up from the grindstone and smell the roses (apologies for mixed metaphors), then all the better. This new hypnosisdownloads.com session ‘Stop and smell the roses’ is all about encouraging just that.
All the best
Mark
