Monday, January 16, 2006
What is seldom is wonderful
The title of this post is an old Irish proverb whose depth really weighs on me. I read it and immediately know exactly where it comes from. Think of all of the things you really love or enjoy that you only experience infrequently. How much more wonderful are they when you do get to experience them? It's like waiting for an email from a friend who you don't correspond with all the time. Opening that email is a moment of bliss. Isn't chocolate better when you don't have it every day? I cherish my time more with people I don't see all the time thereby making even the most mundane seem wonderful. You can punch holes in this proverb (rarely get sick but that doesn't make getting sick wonderful), but it's so much sweeter to accept it simplistically. Since day 16 in This Book Will Change Your Life Again (sidebar) is all about testing a proverb, I'm going to spend today experiencing the wonderful by revisiting some of the things I love that I seldom get/see.
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The idea behind the proverb is fairly simple, but the beauty lies in the way it is expressed. Usually, we think in terms of the negative -- if you eat too much chocolate, it won't be special anymore. Here, the emphasis is on the positive -- what you have only seldomly, is all the more special. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteVery true! we always like the things we can't get easily. I guess we can be more wiser keeping this proverb in mind. It is human nature to please others and the more familiar we are with one, the less bothered we are to please them.
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