Close Your Eyes.

Often, these days, we hear the phrase, "open your eyes!". It's often a charge from a very radical person. It could be religious or political or just general. I will even admit to have been this person before. "Open your eyes to everything amazing around you!", haha. And while it's cheesy, I still agree with it.

However, with what little experience I have, I have learned that simply opening your eyes and looking around is not the first step to digesting everything around you. If opening your eyes is the first step, it can turn out to be a disaster.

For me, I know that to be happy, I can't just do the things that I "know" will make me happy, I have to do the things in front of me. I have to complete the day's opportunities to the fullest. That's when I'm most happy. That in itself, in our culture, seems backwards. Why? Because everything is so instantly attainable.

I'm going to roll up my thought again before I get too far off point. Ha.

Lately I've been taking 20-30 minutes per day, in the middle of the day, to re-assess what is going on in my mind. You can call is meditation, reflection, or even just good planning. On my lunch break at work I walk 2 minutes down the road next the grocery and sit under a tree on the hill there. At my job we stand all 8 hrs of our shift, so on lunch it's common do simply go in the back room and sit at a desk for the 30 minutes. But I feel so pent in by doing this in the past, and can't do it any longer. So I've started going to to that tree on a hill. I'll take my shoes and socks off and lay back with my hands behind my head and sky-gaze for about ten minutes. Then I purposefully close my eyes for about 20 minutes. I do this because it's healthy for the eyes, they can gain energy through being closed. But I also do it because it allows me some time to turn over my thoughts, my worries, my mood, and I can iron out wrinkles in the fabric.

There is breeze and there is grass. Extremely underrated stuff!

But when I open my eyes and stare back at the world around me, it feels better. I walk back to work and it's a little easier to be nice to grumpy customers. My mind feels a little greener for lasting the rest of the day.

In every way I've found it to be helpful. It's extremely healthy, physically, spiritually, and mentally. And what's more important than those three things?

I guess my point is very simple, even though I have a lot of obscure thought surrounding it.

I've been closing my eyes, and it's working wonders.