You Can Learn From Nature

Stress can take years off your life. Often it's because we put a lot of unreasonable demands on ourselves that don't contribute to what we really need.  Sometimes we get the idea that more is better. I say that depends on how "more" comes to you. If it is at the expense of your health and quality of life, you might need to take a second look. 

You can learn from watching animals. You don't see many stressed out cats, dogs or birds. They just live every moment and deal with whatever comes their way. Watch a tree how the limbs bend in a heavy wind. They are born to be flexible and yielding to opposing forces lest they break apart at every storm.  Learn to live more in the moment and give your energy to what your doing rather then what it brings you. Then you will live more like our animal friends that rarely die of a stroke from trying to get more then they need to live.

Life Is Now

     I was thinking, or trying to remember, some of things I did while growing up in New Jersey. In many ways it seems so long ago it's almost as if it was another person. I think that one of reasons that childhood is so memorable is that when we are very young, we live almost entirely in the moment. We have very little past to influence our present experience. Everything is new, fresh, and the sparkle of the "first time ever." As we get older, we spend a lot of our hours thinking about the past and concerns about the future. In doing so, we miss the present moment and what made days fresh and new when we are young.