Learn to be Present

A couple weeks back, I found a website on Zen Habits, and one of the postings asked, "How can you bring calm and peace to the middle of a stressful, chaotic day?" The answer: "learn to be present". It can change your life, and it's incredibly simple. When you're doing something, learn to focus completely on doing that one thing. Pay attention to every aspect of what your doing, to your body to the sensations, to your thoughts.

Ok, so not always so easy, but it does take practice! I have to admit, I had a very productive two days, and I'm definitely not stressed. In fact, I found a few joys and simple laughter in my day. Let me tell you about them.....

First, in my job, I process the items that are returned to my store. So I get to see all kinds of things, even things I don't want to see! With that in mind, I'm working on some of the apparel returns, and I notice this jungle print item. When I picked it up, it felt padded, like a bra. But upon closer inspection, I found it wasn't a bra, nor was it a swimsuit item, it was panties! Padded panties!! Being a chubby old chick, um, no WAY do I care to add something to the derriere that isn't already there! I laughed and couldn't imagine who .... ok, more like I didn't want to imagine who...... *still chuckling*

Later on, one of the guys was bringing me a damaged bookshelf; Conrado said "Hi Linda, como esta?" and to his surprise, I answered back, "muy bien, e tu?" He looked at me and said something that I assume meant "Oh you speak Spanish" and continued talking to me. I laughed and shook my head. "You speak Spanish?" he asked in English. "Poco" I told him. We laughed about it for a bit. Later in the day he came by again, I thanked him and he said "you're welcome" back in Spanish, as if to teach me. (My apologies if any of this is spelled wrong....)

Between the "being present", accomplishing good things with my job, and finding things to laugh about, I realized that we forget how much fun it is when you make a choice to find little joys in each day. Make it a good day with little joys!

HUGS to everyone!

As an added afterthought, this month marks
my 10 year anniversary in my current job.
I can't believe how much time has gone by,
and how many things in my life
have changed in those 10 years.
They've all been good things,
and I'm thankful for every one of them!