Intentional Beauty
It never occurred to me to live somewhere beautiful. I grew up in a busy home filled with busy people. My only reason to look out a window was to see who was at the front door.
When I grew up, my choice of home remained more practical than pretty. My view was more neighbors than nature, more screens than scenes, more books than beauty.
Beautiful places were vacation destinations.
Vacations were getaways. We escaped from the ordinary to view the extraordinary. We traveled often and created memories of beautiful places. In all those years of travel, it never occurred to me to live somewhere beautiful.
And then I remembered:
Life is a series of choices.
Too often, we accept old routines for outdated reasons. We forget we have the power to create. We forget how much beauty exists in our topsy turvy world. We forget to be intentional.
We all have the power to change our views.
When I was younger and I didn’t know better, my view never changed. I inherited a singular outlook. I thought other people and other places were more beautiful and more powerful. I stubbornly resisted changing my point of view.
Change happens by force or choice. For me, covid was the force. Lockdown was my wake-up call for a new beginning. Sometimes force leads to a better choice.
Now, I have given up my stubborn ways. I am far more fluid. I listen more. I see more. I adapt more quickly to our constantly changing world. I’ve changed.
I no longer need to escape from the ordinary because I am immersed in the extraordinary. I am surrounded by extraordinary views and extraordinary people living with intention.
My daily life is filled with intentional beauty. It finally occurred to me to use my power and my choices to change me and everything I see.
Now, I intentionally live somewhere beautiful. And, I never stop looking out the window.
On the first morning, I opened my eyes to this out my window.
This unedited picture captures only a fraction of the beauty my eyes are now seeing in our topsy turvy world.
