It’s nice to be surprised. This means we have retained the ability to look at the world with fresh eyes. What surprised you recently? With this question, we turned to our readers. First-person stories and expert opinions.
Whether we’re changing the water in a vase of flowers, opening the windows, or putting on deodorant, we need freshness. And, as it turns out, not only in everyday life. Surprise is our wonderful ability to experience freshness in our relationship with the world. This feeling comes on suddenly. It makes us breathe deeper and smoothes wrinkles on the face. Eyes light up, cheeks turn pink, we feel energy and at this moment we believe in good things. Unlearning how to be surprised, we would cease to experience a sense of pleasure and lose confidence in life.
At times like these, we look at the world with fresh eyes. Fresh means without traces of the old, clean, unprejudiced. Previous experience could leave an imprint, it often happens. However, we have the freedom to allow ourselves to drop expectations for a moment and look again, again. And then there is a chance to be surprised. “Wow, Wi-Fi works in such a wilderness!” – Arthur is amazed; Vlada is amazed: a complete stranger helped her, and the accidentally seen film turned Alexandra’s idea of uXNUMXbuXNUMXbwhat she was fond of so far.
The most expensive and powerful experiences arise on such seemingly ordinary occasions. And you won’t tell everyone about them, because you can hear the answer: “It’s so banal!” What devalues the “banal” is usually those of us who find it difficult to drop expectations, who know too well how it should be and how it should not be. Often such skeptics have a doomedly bad relationship with reality: it constantly disappoints them. Even if at first there was a charm, it is quickly replaced by a frighteningly familiar one: “Not that again.” How to be? Learn to look with fresh eyes, not suspecting anything of this world and not demanding anything from it. If you do not expect danger from the trip or, on the contrary, some incredibly wonderful impressions, you are more likely to get positive memories. If you do not build far-reaching plans in new relationships, but simply be open, you can protect yourself from disappointment, and maybe meet your only one, who, as it usually happens, will turn out to be completely different from what we imagined in advance.
Adulthood is a change of attitude: from “living in accordance with your ideas about life” to “living openly, trusting what comes from the world and your own feelings.” Aerobatics – after 25 years of marriage, wake up next to a partner, look at him and be surprised: “Wow, I still want him!”
Read more:
- Why do we rarely make ourselves happy?
As long as we are surprised at something, we live. The feeling “nothing can surprise me anymore” is mental death, the last stage in the chain of experiences when meeting something bad. Protective insensitivity, when apathy comes to the place of habitual impotent anger or irritation. Therefore, this phrase itself should be an alarming signal: we are talking about a bad life situation that threatens life itself – perhaps not the existence of the body, but the life of the soul.
So, when you are not surprised, it is bad. But after all, you can be surprised not only with a positive sign. Surprise is a sign of our openness to the world, but any openness is risky. The world can make us feel not only pleasant, warm emotions – in openness we are also vulnerable. The discovery that Oleg made influenced the search for a new job. However, there is simply no other way to live well. In our relations with the world, no matter what position we choose, we cannot do without risk: those who close themselves and choose aloofness doom themselves to boredom and a colorless life. And those who live with an open heart run the risk of being saddened or offended. Such are the rules.
There is no alibi in dealing with life. And we can only train our courage, strengthen our internal supports, equip the rear – and take risks. The most important thing for every person is to become a person, without this internal structure we cannot meet everything that we face every day: either we do not dare to look openly, or we choke in strong emotions, unable to return to internal balance due to a still weak “I AM”.
Are you surprised by anything today? If so, know that you took a risk and found the courage to take that risk. What has been affecting you lately? Take a closer look and you can learn a lot about what is happening in your life right now. Those of us who can look openly are surprised by the good. And those who are especially talented in this are surprised and pleased by the absence of bad things. Such people experience not only trust in the world, but also a sense of gratitude for it. And even in the most difficult periods of their lives, they say: “Thank you for only this!”