The beauty of life

For a long time when I looked at my own life I found it hard to find the beauty in anything. Day after day it felt like only the crummy, dreadful aspects of life were breaking in. Just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse, they almost always did. It came to a point where my expectations were automatically tuned to everything that was unfortunate. I stopped getting excited about anything good happening. I took on the persona of Debbie Downer and carried on in life, never taking notice of anything worth being beautiful in life. Little did I know that there was beauty all around me, even in the midst of all the ugliness. 

When I think of beauty in life, a few different things come to find (actually, a countless number of examples pop into my head, but I’ll keep the list short for now). There’s so many elements that make up all of our lives, and any number of them can carry beauty. Sunrises, sunsets, mountains, oceans, laughter, smiles, rock n roll music, movies, books, poetry, chocolate cake, tacos; I could spend all day just making a list of some of the beautiful parts of life. Every day we have a chance to witness something beautiful. But why don’t we celebrate these beautiful things and more? Why do we choose to focus on the ugliness?

I can only speak for myself and my own experience with both the beauty and ugliness of life. In my head I’ve experienced my fair share of both. When I was a teenager, I was convinced that my life could hold no beauty in it; that nothing good could exist. Little did I know, there was a plethora of goodness all around me. I just couldn’t see it because my vision was clouded by negativity. There was beauty in the simple fact that I was alive to see another day: I was able to breathe in fresh air and for the most part was in the right state of mind. Now that I’ve gotten a little older, I am able to look at my life with a new set of lenses and see more of the day-to-day beauty. Whether it’s seeing a full moon and starry sky late at night or listening to a loved one laugh out loud, I know in my heart that life’s beauty will always trump its ugliness. Yes, at times things will seem very bleak with no hope in sight, but I believe that beauty and goodness are still there. As long as we continue to look, it will still show up.