4 Tips for Increasing Your Sense of Appreciation and Wonder in Everyday Life
As a rule, we are all “looking for” things in our lives in order to experience a sense of meaning and purpose that goes beyond just short-term pleasures and luxuries, and straightforward distractions.
That’s probably a reason why so many of the stories that grip us – whether via TV, film, or in books – focus on life lived at its most extreme edges; situations where everything is on the line and everything is intense, meaning that everything is also stripped down to its essentials in some way.
Although we live in the most exorbitantly luxurious and materially sophisticated time in history, a shocking number of people find themselves feeling perpetually underwhelmed, jaded, lost, and distracted.
There may be many solutions to this, but finding ways to increase your sense of appreciation and wonder at the blessings of everyday life, is one of the clearest – and one that has proved successful for all number of people, in all number of different situations.
Here are a few tips to set you on the right path.
- Treat your home as an extension of yourself, and give it the respect it deserves
It’s pretty easy to neglect your home and let it get at least a bit messy and chaotic, especially when you are busy doing other things that are – or at least seem – more pressing and important.
But it would be a mistake to think that the state of your home had no significant bearing on the state of your mood, energy levels, outlook on life, and sense of wonder and appreciation. If you had pests and didn’t call the pest police, for example, how would that impact your mood?
The famous scholar of religion, Mircea Eliade, wrote in his book “The Sacred and The Profane,” that the home has often been conceptualised as a reflection of the soul of the individual who lives there. And even if you’re not too into the metaphysical or anthropological undercurrents of that suggestion, psychologists have also noted that people who keep their homes more orderly and tidy, just feel better and more in control of life.
At the very least, you can probably agree that you simply feel more positive when your home is in good condition – and that you feel irritated and not so good, when it isn’t.
We all tend to spend quite a lot of time in our homes – for some of us, the majority of our time. It stands to reason, then, that if your home is the kind of place that makes you feel totally overwhelmed by life, you’re not going to have much room to appreciate the small things, or to develop a sense of wonder.
So, treat your home as an extension of yourself rather than just as some purely functional environment that you inhabit – and give it the respect it deserves.
- Make time for “silence” on a regular basis
Erling Kagge is a famous Norwegian entrepreneur and explorer – among other things, he is the first man to have walked solo to the South Pole, walked to the North Pole, and summited Everest, in one lifetime.
He’s also a strong believer in the power of “silence,” and a sceptic of the constant “noise” and information overload that shapes and rules so much of life and the world today.
When he refers to “noise” he’s not talking about “sound,” in particular. More the state of extreme mental chatter and distraction that can be brought about and promoted by all sorts of activities that don’t necessarily make any sound at all – such as obsessively browsing the web on your smartphone.
Kagge is by no means the first, or the only person to make this point. All sorts of people, throughout the world, and throughout history – but especially in recent times – have argued that information overload and chronic distraction keeps us from connecting with what’s most “real” and important in life and the world around us.
The author Nicholas Carr even outlined a lot of evidence in his book, “The Shallows,” that training yourself to be constantly distracted massively limits the “depth” of your internal life, and robs you of the ability to read deep and lengthy books.
If you’re constantly so distracted and caught up in your own head that you can’t properly appreciate a beautiful sunrise any more, then you should really look into making time for “silence” on a regular basis.
That means getting comfortable with the idea of being bored from time to time. It might be more worthwhile than you think, and might open you up to a lot of the subtler wonders of the world around you.
- Do difficult things, often, and willingly
Everyone knows, on some level, that when they dramatically overindulge on a regular basis, they become desensitised and the things that they’ve overindulged in lose their lustre dramatically.
No doubt that’s a big part of the reason why millionaires aren’t all walking around in a state of perpetual joy and happiness at the fancy gadgets, and gourmet meals they get to enjoy whenever they want. Indulge too much, and it just becomes your new normal, instead of allowing you to gain a deeper sense of appreciation for life and its blessings.
So, what does actually help people to feel a greater sense of joy, purpose, and appreciation in life? Well, doing difficult things, often and willingly, certainly seems to work.
When someone has just run a marathon in the cold, you can be sure that they will enjoy a hot bath afterwards more than almost anyone else you could find. Likewise, if someone has been working hard on a strenuous project, the time they spend afterwards hanging out with friends is likely to feel absolutely blissful.
Instead of trying to immerse yourself in comfort and relaxation constantly, focus on doing difficult things, instead. By doing so you are likely to find that a lot of life’s blessings unfold themselves to you.
- Treat yourself well, get enough sleep, and follow decent nutrition principles
No matter how many blessings you have in your life, the odds of you actually being in a state to enjoy and appreciate them is pretty low, if you are always sleep deprived and have terrible nutrition habits.
There are all sorts of debates out there about the best way to eat, and the healthiest lifestyle to live. Don’t get too obsessed about all that, to start with. Just commit to eating balanced home-cooked meals (and enough food, too), don’t eat too close to bedtime, get enough sleep, and stay physically active.
Everything in your life is bound to look brighter if you do that.
