Job and family pressures and priorities, failure to just say "time out" and relax, taking on too much at once, and a tendency for us to forget that many things which were "important" to us when we were much younger might still be important today.
For example, why was it when we were kids in elementary school, that the excitement of having a few months off during the summer took away all concerns about how hot it was? Barefooted in shorts and faded tee shirts, we yearned for the outdoors...lakes, streams, woods, hills and mountains and if we were lucky enough, visits to the ocean with breaking waves along the beach, seashells, and chasing sand crabs with a flashlight at night. We "saw" everything around us...missing nothing. And as a result, we were generally stress free...unlike how we became as we grew older.
How many of you reading this blog, took a week-long family vacation this summer, during which you spent several hours a day reading your job related email, or posting on Twitter or Facebook? The time you spent doing those things was time you could have spent looking around at your surroundings, and better appreciating where you are in life, and all the goodness for which you ought to be most thankful. Start thinking like a kid again...not all the time...just a bit to help you remember how it used to be. And...how it might be again.
