Simple Pleasures

At the time of writing (which was a few weeks ago!) , I’ve been in Australia nearly 22 hours after a 28 hour trip door-to-door. That’s not the pleasurable part!

It’s Sunday and I’m staying at the Stamford Grand Hotel in a northern suburb of Sydney. After a good sleep and a good breakfast I thought I would take a walk down to the local shopping mall just opposite Macquarie University. I’ve been there before and it’s a good way to kill a couple of hours when you are recovering from a long flight.

It’s summer here so it’s warm and humid and I started grinning to myself as I walked down the road. No, I’m not mad (well, not too mad) but I was loving the fact that I could walk down the street in February in a t-shirt and jeans, I could hear the birds squawking unfamiliar squawks and I could smell the eucalyptus trees.

Nothing spectacular in and of itself but it got me thinking about how much pleasure I take from small things and how much of it is just down to observation.

I have a dog which I regularly walk at lunchtime in a local conifer plantation. It’s just a small woodland but it gives me immense pleasure to see the occasional deer or two, the fly agaric pushing through the soil in the autumn, the frost in the trees, the way the sunlight falls through the trees when it’s misty.

Only small things but they give me a real buzz particularly when I sitting in the office that afternoon slaving over a hot quote or whatever. I can think to myself “I saw something today that no-one else in this office saw.”

I think W.H. Davies summed it up best in his poem 'Leisure' when he said:

“What is this life if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.”

So many people rush through this world without ever seeing what is around them. They strive to earn more money with which they can buy more stuff to entertain themselves but they never lift their heads up and just look around.

Take a few minutes today to stand and stare. Throw off your cynical shell and just live in the moment. Use all of your senses and try to regain childlike wonder at the world. You might be pleasantly surprised by what you see, hear smell, touch and taste.