The Shanghai lockdown, as of June 1st, is officially over. Wow! It’s been at least 2 months for everybody within Shanghai, but for many – including myself – it’s been almost 3 months. It has been difficult at times but ultimately it has been an experience, and experiences are always good if we take the positives from them! What positives are there Tony? Good question! Just the usual I go on about: building resilience etc. Anyhow this blog is not about the positives of a lockdown, It’s about appreciation! Let’s get started!
A new found perspective
Yesterday I spent my afternoon and evening with my good friend Jessica. We went to a park – opposite where I live – and had a picnic, and then had dinner at a local Korean BBQ restaurant. What a day! I had actually never been to this park before yesterday and it made me remember how important simple things are in life. Sitting in a park and having a picnic with Jessica is so simple, yet so beautiful that I wish I could do it everyday. You know what they say right? Keep life simple! What made the day truly special however was the conversations we shared.
It’s just amazing when you can talk to somebody about anything, no matter how deep or difficult the conversation may be. From my experience it’s not often that you find people who are willing to talk about the wonders and difficulties of life. It’s easier to just keep things at surface level but how boring is that! Right? We want to hear about each other’s hardships and how we’ve overcome them. What makes us wake up in the morning and feel that love for life. We want to talk about how family and society can end up shaping us unless we take control of what we want. We want to share our dream and look back on how far we’ve come and what we’ve achieved. Well, at least I do! These are some of the topics myself and Jessica spoke about yesterday and what a pleasure it was.
Soak it all in
Having these wonderful conversations with her, whilst sitting at a park enjoying the beautiful weather reminded me of how beautiful life is when you have the right company, in the right environment. See, 9 times out of 10, when we hear some wisdom it doesn’t come as a shock to us. We know it’s true and tend to agree with it. We just forgot about it and forgot to apply it! This is so normal – we get caught up in our lives and our default way of thinking that we forget to apply the things than can elevate our minds and ultimately our lives. This is the key: application. Without consistent application our knowledge is not power, it’s only potential power. To make our knowledge powerful we have to apply it and put it into motion – it’s the only way to truly know whether we have learnt something or not.
There are no such things as small things
I’m really not a fan of labelling certain things as small things – I rarely do it. On the occasion that I do it’s because I’m unsure about how to express my point in a different way. I believe there are no such things as small things in life. I understand the point people make when they say: ‘appreciate the small things in life’, it’s a nice saying. However I don’t believe there are small things in life, I just look at everything as part of life. Whether that’s relocating to another country, getting married, having a picnic in a park with a friend or even taking a late-night walk. Every single moment in our lives is part of our lives, and they are all as equally important because they all consume time!
Our time is passing by every second and every second we are getting older and our lives are becoming shorter. Dark but true! Therefore how we choose to spend our time is incredibly important, and if we are doing something that we love then it’s no small thing in life. In fact it’s quite the opposite: it’s huge! It’s huge because we are spending our time in the most valuable way we possibly can: by doing what we love!
So my parting message is to appreciate everything in life, every single moment. We will never get our time back so we must use it wisely – by doing what we love!
Thank you for reading.
With gratitude,
Tony.
