Applied religious principles can create 'nice moments'

The meaning of life, well the meaning of life to me came whooshing into my consciousness yesterday in such an unremarkable and gentle fashion I almost mistook it for a passing fancy. But somehow I paused and absorbed what I was ‘getting’ and it slowly dawned on me that I was poised to experience a major >pardigm shifting< awakening. I’m not kidding.

Want to know what came in? Just this:

A high quality life is experienced through its acknowledgement of nice moments.
Some we consume.
Some we provide.

That’s it. That’s all there is to it. Works on every level. No exceptions. This explains why people who seemingly “have everything” might be unhappy, and why people who look like they’re getting by on “almost nothing” are full of joy.

Happy people, people who are largely content train themselves to notice nice moments.

• • A gorgeous full rising moon
• • a funny video
• • the taste of rice
• • the meeting up with a friend
• • water

Nice moments can happen under very ordinary circumstances

They also tend to notice situations where they can personally provide something that may well create a nice moment for another and do what it takes, when they can, to make that happen.

For a billionaire maybe that means setting up no-cost medical clinics across a continent. For a regular joe maybe that means buying a starving dog on the streets in a small town in a poor nation a succulent chicken breast from a vendor as maybe the best — maybe the last –meal of his life (which brings hot tears to my eyes still  when I realized then and remember now,  the skinny fellow couldn’t believe I was handing it to him. Then he did and took it politely).

It’s not about the size of the gesture, just its intent. This is like magic. I think its why it gets misunderstood so much. By me, too – it’s not like I’m Buddha.

This also explains why we get confused by the power of appreciating what’s in our lives at the moment. We get spellbound by the striving to do more, have more, be more and forget to pause and appreciate what is.

For me nice moments often have animals in them

Weird example: I almost always feel like I look crappy. The hair’s wrong, the face; goofy looking and the bod, flabby. Then, almost without exception, I look at a photo of myself from, say, ten years prior and I’m like “Hey I wasn’t so bad looking.”. This is a constant. So one of my own personal challenges is to appreciate how I look right now so I can remove the exertion of thinking about it negatively out of my day’s equation.

That’s my own “True Confession” Achilles’ heel – other people have theirs. The looks thing is pretty common — hello plastic surgery, botox, hair dye and dieting. But so is getting caught up in creating The Perfect whatever thing too.

Nice moments usually just require a little refocusing to see

The perfect:

• • Family
• • Home
• • Career
• • Vacation
• • Body
• • Artistic Vision, etc

OK, the striving to do so can be good, healthy even, if we’re remembering to pause along the way and appreciate stuff, conditions, moments as we do so. But the end goal isn’t the life lived – it’s the moments getting (or not getting) there that is.

That’s it! The Secret to a Life Well Lived.

Build a daily string of nice moments:

1. Pause to appreciate what’s right about how you’re living right now.
   Your breakfast – how was that? Your pets, love them? Your family – what’s good there? Your recreation – doing some fun things? Glad you can? Your job – got one? Like something about it?
2. Make a nice moment for another.
   Let someone you don’t have to into the line of traffic ahead of you. Notice the fancy nails on the check out girl. Donate five bucks to an animal rescue. Donate a million to a hospital. Bring your miniature horse to an assisted living center.

Really I think it’s as simple as that. Though I will add that if you’re having a hard time coming up with something to be happy about or to appreciate at any one moment for whatever reason then probably what you’re meant to be doing at that time is working on making a nice moment for someone else.