Awareness is the key to living full lives. . .

I read a wonderful little book yesterday by David Foster Wallace.  The title is This Is Water.  It’s one of those special little books that takes a hold of you and doesn’t let go.  It’s actually a commencement address that Mr. Wallace gave at Kenyon College in 2005.  He begins with a simple story about two young fish swimming along and an older fish swims by and says,  “Hello. How’s the water?”  After swimming on a bit, one fish looks at the other and says, “What’s water?”  The message, of course, is that we don’t actually see what’s all around us.  We live unseeing, unconscious, unaware lives.

The question I have for you is are you simply passing time in this life or are you showing up fully to the people and the circumstances on your path?  Are you allowing your life to be touched by all that is happening around you?  It would enrich you.  For sure.

As Wallace points out in his little book, we seldom know the back story of any one we see at the grocery or on the highways of life but we pass judgment any way.  What if we did know their stories or what if we did, for just a moment, imagine that we knew them.  Would we look at all of these people differently?  It’s his supposition that we would.  I’m inclined to agree.

It doesn’t matter if we know the real story, however.  What we do know is that every one is worthy of our kind attention and our hope for their well-being.  Mother Theresa expressed it well when she said, and I paraphrase, be kind to every one and start with the person standing next to you. We are all deserving of an interested witness to our lives.  And we are all living lives that deserve our full attention.  Not seeing what we are living “within or among,” means we aren’t living lives that are attached to the only moment we truly have: now.

The opportunity we have is to become the wise, older fish at any moment.  We can know what we are swimming through.  We can know the questions to ask our companions.  We can see all that’s around us to see.  And we can be grateful for and present to the opportunity of knowing every one’s story in the only way that really matters: we are all human beings living spirited filled lives.  Acknowledging this affirms the spirit every where.

Are you seeing what’s really there to be seen today?  You can begin now.