What's Out Your Window?

Hey World,

I've spent a lot of time the last few weeks thinking about chasing your dreams and achieving your goals. Of course, that's the premise of this entire blog...but the lifelong project is how to continue to pursue these things, changing as they change, and constantly pursuing new ways in which to both see the world (literally), and how to see the world.

When I was a kid, my father always told me to get the airplane off the ground, because once the plane is in the air, it's much easier not only to cruise, but to continue gaining altitude. This was the metaphor he used for success back then, and continues to be the metaphor he uses as I talk about achieving goals now. 

As I was flying on a small plane a few days ago while I was #offthegrid (more to come on that later), I spent most of the time soaking in the beautiful views of XXXXXXX from the air. I couldn't help but feel satisfied, and so at peace, that at that very moment in time, space, and my life, I was able to look out the window and see this:

and this:

Of course, being the sassy person that I am, my first post on Facebook after a week's hiatus was the first picture with the following:

Being #offthegrid has never looked so beautiful. 
What's out your window?

Regardless of whether or not we are #offthegrid (although I highly encourage these moments once in awhile to recharge our minds and our hearts), I think a great question to ask ourselves is "What's out my window?"

If you don't like what is out your window...you're probably spending your time/energy in the wrong place. If you are looking out your window and are just stupefied with beauty -- no matter if you define that as a wooded forest or a cement jungle or the swing you got for your birthday one year or a smelly back alley or a view of the ocean -- then you are probably doing something right. 

Like some of the questions I mentioned in earlier posts that we should be asking ourselves consistently, I would like to add this one to the mix.

Why?

Because what's out our window matters.

It matters if we can see trees or other people, if we are happy about being somewhere we want to be, somewhere we should/n't be, or somewhere we have to be. 

It matters that before we lay our heads on our pillows, we think back to all of the scenes outside our windows during the last 12-20 hours and thought, "yes, I was where I wanted to be/where I was supposed to be, and I saw the things I wanted to see and did the things I wanted to accomplish, and now I am here, and I remain content".

As I write this now, I am in a windowless room, where I have been sitting for close to 7 hours. The view, as you can imagine, in nothing spectacular. However, I am making leaps and bounds on a paper that is due in three days, and I am happy that I chose to do my work in this (void) environment rather than somewhere more refreshing, because I know ultimately this will allow me to spend more time with better things out my window in just a few days.

So this is not to say that every moment of every minute of every hour of every day of every week of every month should be spent near a window with a beautiful backdrop of our planet.

It's just another way to keep ourselves in check - to make sure that we are doing what we want to do, and that our windows provide us a view of the world we want to see.

xoxo,

M