Another weekend is here concluding another week in Korea. During my usual week I found myself walking home following the same old route, looking at the same old things, hearing the same sounds and smelling the same smells. I usually walk through the Sasang subway station, 5 minutes from my apartment, to avoid having to cross the busy street which provides shelter from the chilly breeze.
Last week I felt like I was going in circles not really heading in any specific direction. I found myself arriving at the same point, over and over again until I stopped and asked myself, am I trapped in a lifetime of monotonous routine? Is there any way out of this daily cycle? I get up every morning, take a shower, eat a bowl of cereal, get dressed, walk to school, turn on my computer, reset my computer, turn on my computer, (it's a crappy computer) open my text book, plan a quick lesson, teach. Noon arrives, I eat lunch, go up to the fourth floor and sit in the office for 3 hours. 4:30 arrives, I pack my things and I head home via the subway station. Sounds pretty redundant, I know. At the end of the day I asked myself, how do I eradicate the redundancies of life? Is it possible to reboot my life to a new start, like my computer?
On my way home I came to a crossroad. The subway station. Do I go through the station and follow the same old route or should I break the routine and take the long way home? I thought, menh... life's short. Live life dangerously. So I turned away from the entrance to the subway and started walking. During my walk I noticed so many beautiful things. I stopped a few times to smell the blooming flowers. I looked up and saw a beautiful canopy of cherry blossoms providing a moments relief from the sun. No longer did I hear cars and horns in the streets, but birds singing in the trees. Obviously it is difficult to tune out the noise of the city, but if you take a moment to listen, you'll hear things that you didn't hear before. I wouldn't have seen any of these things if I decided to go through the subway.
Life doesn't need to be redundant or monotonous. We weren’t born just to do the same things every day when we wake up. We weren’t born even just to eat, sleep, work and die. We were born to do more and to bring more good things to the world. Doing so will allow us to see that there is an abundance of life and beauty in the world.
In the words of Felicia Hemans, “There’s beauty all around our paths, if but our watchful eyes can trace it midst familiar things, and through their lowly guise.”
1 comment:
So true, Jon. Even though we may have the same basic routine - get up, go to work, come home - we can open our eyes to see the little wonders that can fill our days if we draw our attention to them.
The birds are back. So many of them. They make so much noise in the trees - it's wonderful. The last few days we've had cedar waxwings and robins eating up all of the crabapples in the backyard tree. They ate everything in the tree and are working on what's left on the ground. I guess they were ready for a feast after their long flight home.
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