Don't Wait Till You Are Dying to Appreciate the World Around You

A few years ago a very close friend of mine found out she had cancer. She was a mom and a grandmother but was only in her fifties, and her cancer was at a very late stage. I was devastated, and tried to stay in touch with her. What I started receiving from her were weekly emails with beautiful pictures attached of things in her world that she had never noticed before. There were pictures of a perfect rose, a beautiful beach scene, a picture of her dog in the woods, etc. Her grown children had started accompanying her on nature walks because she was too weak to walk alone.

She brought her camera along on these walks. She saw things she had never noticed before and captured them with her camera, and shared them with friends and family online. It made me sad to realize it took her knowledge that she did not have much time left here on Earth before she noticed the beauty around her.

I don't want to wait till I am dying to appreciate the beauty of the world around me. I am sure there are many others that do the same thing. We go about our business day to day and never notice the field of daisies on the way to work in the morning because we are too intent on looking straight ahead and fighting the traffic to get to work.

We may not notice the beautiful and fragrant honeysuckle growing on the wall up the street from our house because it's easier if we hook the dog out on the back run instead of walking the dog up the street and enjoying the look and the heady scent of that glorious honeysuckle. We drive by the beach on our way to run errands, not stopping to get out of the car, feel the sunshine on our faces, inhale the salt air, and listen to the waves as they crash on the shore. Are we too busy to appreciate the beauty of the Earth God gave to us? Will we someday be sad when we hear bad news from the doctor and then think, 'Wait, my time can't be up because I didn't have time to stop and smell the proverbial roses yet."

We need to make the time while we have it. Because tomorrow may be too late. And when we arrive before God in his Heaven, if he asks us how we liked the beauty of the Earth He created for us, I for one don't want to have to tell him I was too busy with life to look around.

I want to soak it all in now and share it with the rest of the world, or at least my friends and relatives and HubPages readers! And maybe, just maybe, encourage a few here and there to do the same. I won't ever be sad that I was observant and was able to see that field of daisies, or the deer and her fawn off in the woods as I walked my dog through them. We need to make the time while we have it. I want to soak it all in now and share it with the rest of the world, or at least my friends and relatives and Hub Page readers! And maybe, just maybe, encourage a few here and there to do the same. I won't ever be sad that I was observant and was able to see that field of daisies, or the deer and her fawn off in the woods as I walked my dog through them.

I will, however, be sad if I only pay attention to my busy schedule and the traffic, and the grocery shopping, and all the other errands that require my time. I will try to walk the dog, and smell the honeysuckle, and stop and take a picture of that beach on a sunny day to remember sights and sounds that are God's gift to those of us on Earth. I will do it not only to honor God but also to honor my friend Nanci, who died six short months after she got the news that she had cancer. And I hope she somehow knows that she inspired me to not take the beauty around me for granted.

Hopefully, this article has also inspired you. My strong recommendation is to take advantage of all of the beauty that is around you now. Take a walk and really look around. Smell the salt air as you walk on a beach and see the beauty of the ocean. Breathe in the fragrance of the forest as you walk through the woods. Stop by a stream or waterfall and listen to the sound the water makes as it careens over rocks and pours down to the earth below. If you have a camera on your cell phone, take photos of the beauty that is all around you. If you want to go a step further, buy a nicer camera than your cell phone camera and start taking photos of the beauty you see. I can bet you will look at the world differently when you start to really observe the beauty all around you.