How many times have you plopped into bed at the end of the day too tired to remember or value the gifts in your waking hours? How many of your days have flowed into weeks and then months, perhaps even years, without your dreams interrupting your routines?
The start of a new year offers an opportunity to reset intentions. What if you choose one episode to be the day’s gift? At the start of the day set one expectation that you anticipate. At day’s end look back upon the interaction that had the most impact and the lesson it served up for you. During the day, when you are surprised by an interaction, pause long enough to wonder about its meaning.
I am adopting this practice and finding it to be a very useful way to nurture mindfulness, joy, appreciation and purpose. One example comes from connecting the dots between recent conversations with a colleague. They are leading me to a modest role in a project he is coordinating related to our mutual professional interests.
Just one thing each day can add up to significant shifts in our life’s trajectory. Words from Maya Angelou’s 1993 inaugural poem, On the Pulse of Morning, elevate the message.
Lift up your faces, you have a piercing need for this bright morning dawning for you. History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, and if faced with courage, need not be lived again. Lift up your eyes upon the day breaking for you. Give birth again to the dream.
Women, children, men, take it into the palms of your hands. Mold it into the shape of your most private need. Sculpt it into the image of your most public self. Lift up your hearts. Each new hour holds new chances for new beginnings.
sacredlead 
Thank you for this offering, Bob–I love it. I can see a variation of this happening in families or at workplaces for communities who want to cultivate mindfulness or intentional living. It could be around the family breakfast table with each person sharing (if desired) an intention for the day… and then to circle back at dinnertime with a highlight of the day. If this is better for someone as a solo practice, one could have a journal and write this intention each morning and each evening one could journal the lessons faced and learned. What a book this might be at the end of a year!
I can also see your idea alongside a daily gratitude practice where parents and kids, spouses, roommates, or students in a yoga class take a moment to call to mind something that fills the heart with gratitude or joy, and if they choose, to speak that gratitude aloud. Gratitude is so powerful and can so often quickly shift one’s mood, perceptions, and general outlook on life and self from negative or complacent to one of appreciation, joy, and compassion.
I remember a long time ago a friend shared her personal bedtime practice of reclining, hands open, feeling the breath come and go… she spent a few minutes clearing her body of any frustrations, any stress, any anger or worry by picturing a bucket at the foot of her bed and allowing all of the things that ailed her to flow down and out of her body, right out the soles of her feet into the bucket. After she felt “cleared,” she pictured herself taking the bucket outside to the woods or a river, and pouring the bucket out and letting her worries flow away. Imagine adding to that practice the one you write about, which would then fill up one’s heart and mind with the gifts of the day, with joy and gratitude.
Katie – such fun to see and feel your parent, teacher and yoga instructor rolling out your heart’s and spirit’s translation of this post. I love where you have taken this. Thank you for bringing gratitude front and center, and thank you for sharing your friend’s beautiful end of day practice. Very powerful.
I absolutely love this Bob and will try to incorporate it into my daily living. Thank you my friend and Happy 2017!
So good to hear from you, Lisa, and I’m happy that the post connected. Being back in touch brings a smile to my face and warmth to my heart.