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Have you stopped lately and asked yourself how much you appreciate life? The very act of living on auto pilot I so often speak about causes us to live life without thinking consciously of what we are doing. It deadens our appreciation for everything we have in our lives and life itself begins to lose its meaning. There is so much beauty to behold but do we really notice it? Take the dew drops in the picture to the left mirroring the flower beds behind them. What a truly beautiful thing to behold. The colors of fall as they turn their dayglo orange and reds and yellows, the fields of wild flowers blowing in the breezes in summer, the many shades of brilliant new greens as plant life unfolds in early spring and even the stark white pallet of winter against the azure blue skies. There is so much beauty to witness each and everyday, but do we? The new world will be all about appreciation. We will have time to slow down and reconnect with what we appreciate in life, everything will hold new meaning, the old world of materialism will drop away and we will be left with simplicity in life and how wonderful it really is.

I was standing in the yard yesterday looking up at the mountainside behind me and I could see individual trees  starting to pop with color. A bright orange tree here a red one there. It was so pretty to look at and made me feel good inside. I could hear the cows bells clanking two fields over, it made me think of scenes from the movie Heidi in the Swiss Alps, those cow pastures filled with beautiful blankets of wildflowers. The sheep next door to me were grazing about the hillside all fat and fluffy with their curly white coats getting ready for winter. I felt blessed to be surrounded by such beauty, but it is not just by luck that I landed here. We all create our reality and what we put into life we get back from it. If you want better, then you must be willing to give yourself to life, go after it and make it happen. Nothing is stopping us but ourselves!

I believe all of this stuff in life is like riding a bike. We know how to do it we just need to remind ourselves. We have allowed ourselves to become too busy to take notice of the world around us. I am sure some will want to say “Me? It is the dark ones that have done this to me”. Yes they have, but only because we have allowed them to, only because we became so infatuated with wealth and getting ahead and having it all that we were not paying attention to what the dark ones were doing, stealing our lives! We are to blame as much as they are and if we wish to change things around, then we must do something about how we live our lives! It is time to simplify our lives and appreciate life again.

Once you begin to simplify your life you begin to see how much better it actually feels. With less in your life there is less demand on you to take care of it, the few things you now have you have because they hold the most meaning for you, with less crammed into your rooms you are better able to see everything and admire it. If you let go of social gatherings every day of the week and turn that time and energy towards family, things change. I am not saying get rid of everything, I am saying use moderation in life. Play golf one day a week instead of whenever you can, use the internet for an hour not half the night so your spouse always goes to bed alone, turn off the TV or better yet get rid of it. All of these activities distract us from family and the core values we should uphold in our lives. It is time to create the new world where life is free, life is slower and life is fully appreciated by all!

Blessings to you all,

Visionkeeper