Awesomeness has No Cost
People have to remember how awesome life is. Below are 3 ways to discover this. It doesn’t take much effort, just look around and it is bound to be found. One of my favourite quotes from Kung Fu Panda is:
There is no charge for awesomeness
The thing is, it is so true!
If you just take the time to see, awesomeness will be there.
Here are 3 different ways to experience awesomeness.
Lazy Once In a Lifetime Guide to Awesomeness
Go on a holiday to some wonderfully remote place of nature and do absolutely nothing but laze around for periods of time at the recommended tourist destinations.
Bring no technology, alcohol or other fancy things to distract you.
By forcing yourself to wait around in beautiful places there is a very small chance that you might get to experience the awesomeness of what is around you.
The idea is that your mind gets so bored that it eventually gives up. When this happens you will either fall asleep or realise that ‘hey that place is pretty cool’.
The other thing that could happen is that you will be immediately struck with a wonderful view and your mind will collapse for all of a few seconds, experiencing awesomeness. Then you will probably lose that sense.
Smart Guide to Awesome Living
Drop away your mind and leave it behind.
Thoughts are like a cloud and you will not be able to see awesomeness due to all the fog.
You have to change your mindset from one of the world being the place where you are born, work and die to the place where everything is awesome.
It probably sounds silly to hold a belief that the world is awesome. But it is just as stupid if not more so to hold the belief that the world is not awesome.
Think about that for a moment.
Then you realise that both views are equally invalid or valid. So pick the one that works best… Awesomeness!!!
Using this method you will be far more ready to appreciate the awesomeness around you. It will just be a matter of looking around without using your mind, trusting that life is awesome and then you will realise that life is awesome.
Being Pure Awesomeness
This method takes the last one a bit further. Here you stop seeing awesomeness and you just feel it.
The difference in this way is that you don’t believe the world is awesome, indeed you have no concept of awesomeness.
Yet even without being able to conceptualise the sensation you can feel it in every step and every reflection in the world.
To reach this stage you have to drop the idea of what a rock is. Forget what the sky looks like, see the pavement for the first time.
When you see your friends next time look into their eyes with curiosity, as if you have never seen a human before.
If you can hold your curiosity for a couple of seconds and the other person doesn’t freak out you will discover something amazing.
Underneath the fear, the joy, the anger, the pain, the glee you will see something else, pure awesomeness and you will realise everyone deep down is awesome. You are awesome, they are awesome and before long you will see everything is awesome.
As long as you live you will then know how to see the awesomeness of everything, and be awesomeness.
Recent Standout Awesomeness Experiences
Here are some of my experiences from the last couple of days.
- Seeing a star-filled sky out in the country, followed 3 hours later by a shooting star
- Watching chocolate sauce being beautifully laid out onto a bed of pancakes
- Gazing at the sky as the clouds displayed an ever-changing flavor of rainbow (apparently similar to a circumhorizon in motion)
- Watching as the salads are added to my subway roll
- Inspecting the curls of the waves that gently crash up against the beach sand
- Looking up at the sky in the city as I step off the busy peak hour tram
Providing you don’t take the lazy way to awesomeness, then awesomeness really has no cost.
What are your experiences with awesomeness?
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October 7th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
I like the quote by Panda Kung Fu too!
Thanks for providing a constant reminder to practice conscious awareness. I’m so needing the reminder, especially when my days can get pretty busy and I totally forget.
October 8th, 2008 at 7:11 pm
@Evelyn: Any time
. I’ve been thinking about using tools to remind me throughout the day but I think a single review at the end of the day and a decision at the start of the next is all we need. After that it is just determination.
October 10th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
This is such fun, open way of looking at the world. Like you, I think it’s foolish to think the world isn’t awesome. From gorgeous nature to spontaneous kindness to the depths of human creativity, there’s awesomeness freely available to those who simply look.
October 10th, 2008 at 4:57 pm
Awesome post, Jarrod. I love how you give examples of awesomeness: the extraordinary hidden amongst the ordinary.
October 11th, 2008 at 4:00 am
Jarrod, this really is a little scary to me. We are definitely along the same wave length. As I said on my response to your comment at my blog, I was just toying with this same idea this morning… To look at everything with no preconceptions or negativity, but just observe it for what it is – as neutral – and soak it in, realizing I can attach negativity to it or I can find the good in it and attach that to it. It really is like looking at something for the first time with no preconceptions or memories. This is a thought that’s just begun turning in my head now, but I see more of it coming.
Just this morning I noticed a dog on our walk that I usually get annoyed at. But this time I just decided to observe the dog. No annoyance was there. It was really neat.
I really like paragraphs 2 and 3 under your second heading! That’s a lot of what I’ve been thinking.
All I know is this post is awesome!
I just had to say that, but the truth is I believe that.
October 11th, 2008 at 2:52 pm
@Sara: It is funny how often we choose to see things other than awesomeness without even knowing we have made the decision.
@Ariel: Thanks, it is wonderful when ordinary losses any sense of meaning.
@Jennifer: I hope your explorations into no preconceptions prove fruitful, I think it is a very ripe ground. Thank you for the ‘awesome’ feedback
October 12th, 2008 at 8:53 pm
This is powerful when you really think about it Jarrod. Awesomeness IS all around us – if we’ll just open our minds and hearts to see it. I’m reminded of a vacation we went on recently to a remote section of Idaho. No communication with the outside world for four days – and I felt surrounded by awesomeness the whole time. It was an amazing experience to get away from the daily distractions that can hold me back from really seeing how awesome our world is. And then, I’m reminded here that we are always surrounded by this awesomeness – we just need to be open to seeing it!
October 17th, 2008 at 7:11 am
[...] positive attitude at all times always seeking truth and good. I learned Jarrod’s post on awesomeness first hand: When you seek to see things as they are you experience awesomeness automatically. [...]
October 17th, 2008 at 7:30 am
“To reach this stage you have to drop the idea of what a rock is. Forget what the sky looks like, see the pavement for the first time.”
I love this. I recall the first time I did a walking meditation and decided just to be and observe without any labels. It blows your mind!
October 17th, 2008 at 8:34 am
@Lance: Yes holidays can be a nice reminder, we just have to remember to see it everywhere.
@Tom: It blows your mind indeed, but I think it is more the sensation of the mind being blown away
October 17th, 2008 at 11:37 am
Tom, I did the walking meditation thing too, if that’s what you call it. That’s when I experienced all kinds of awesomeness: the clouds, the leaves, the crickets, etc. It was great. Or really awesome is the only way to describe it.