A few years back I read a quote in Vonnegut’s Timequake that has stuck with me since.
”My uncle Alex Vonnegut, a Harvard-educated life insurance salesman who lived at 5033 North Pennsylvania Street, taught me something very important. He said that when things were going really well we should be sure to NOTICE it.
He was talking about simple occasions, not great victories; maybe drinking lemonade on a hot afternoon in the shade, or smelling the aroma of a nearby bakery, or fishing and not caring if we catch anything or not, or hearing somebody all alone playing a piano really well in the house next door.
Uncle Alex urged me to say this out loud during such epiphanies: ‘If this isn’t nice, what is?’”
Very true. I always try to notice stuff like that. It’s incredible just how many people *don’t* notice what’s going on around them – even when they’re not mesmerised by their phones!
Yep! It was easy to get distracted by the day-to-day business before phones made it a second-to-second thing.
Isn’t this a fabulous reminder to enjoy life?