It is snowing again today, but it was bright and sunny on Sunday, so we headed to the park by the lake to go for our walk. It is so much nicer to walk there than around the city streets by our home. It is only a ten minute drive to get there, so we choose that location for our walks quite often.
Inside the park there is a small lake/pond that freezers over completely, and a path circles it, which takes us twenty minutes to half an hour to walk around. The path winds through wooded areas but we are always in sight of the water. Very nice!
Being creatures of habit, we park in the same spot each time and start our walk around the lake at the same point. We have done this walk hundreds of times and enjoy it no matter how familiar it has become. In spring and summer, ducks, geese, herons and many other birds, visit the lake/pond. In winter we see groups of children and adults skating on the frozen surface. It is beautiful in every season.
This Sunday we got out of the car and I said to AC, let’s walk in the other direction around the lake today. Yikes! You mean counter clockwise? Yes, let’s throw caution to the wind and just do it. Feeling all off balance but wildly adventurous we set off in a counter clockwise direction. What fun.
We got a totally different view of all the familiar areas and I felt like I was seeing them for the first time. Birch trees posed and stood out against the back-drop of the water like they had never done before. All of the old uphill parts of the walk were now much easier! Amazing how that works. Who knew that we just had to turn around and look at things from a different perspective and the old world would take on new life and meaning. It was fantastic.
Ever since I got home from the walk I have been thinking of how that simple act of walking the other way for a change, made such a difference in how I saw the world around me. It only took a moment of thought to do it, but it did take that moment, and the conscious effort to do something differently. It added beauty and vitality to the otherwise old and familiar.
Stop and think about what you do by rote each day, and how a little change might add beauty and a new way of seeing things to your life. Go ahead, walk counter clockwise today and see how exciting it can be.
2 comments:
Good point! As an added bonus, I have read that doing little things like that differently each day can increase your brain power.
I was going to mention the thing about doing things differently to boost power too, but it looks like Gina beat me to it :)
I am certainly a creature of habit, but every now and then I try and take a different route to work and change up my routine a little to keep things more interesting and less mundane.
Its always so nice when you get a fresh perspective isn't it?
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