Just Look Out the Window

I have been thinking a lot lately about time and how as a society we are always on the go. We hardly ever live in the moment or slow down and take in what is going on right in front of us. There is so much pressure to always be working hard and when you take a break or slow down for a bit I find I feel like a failure in some way because I am not working hard enough or because I need a break. I often find myself rushing from one thing to the next. One morning I was rushing through trying to get my morning started. I had taken out my dog, Ellie, I brought her back in and fed her and my cat, Fiona. I was trying to get my list of things I needed to do that day started, but when I walked by my bedroom I noticed Ellie was sitting on my bed trying her best to look out the window with Fiona. Fiona has no trouble getting up to the windowsill so she can look out the window, but Ellie can’t get up there on her own and she needs me to hold her there so she does not fall off of it (she is quite clumsy and has no spatial awareness). I had things that needed to get done, but watching Ellie sitting on my bed trying to see the little bit that she could through the window made me stop and slow down. I walked in to my room and asked Ellie if she wanted to look out the window. It is one of her favorite things to do and she knows what the question means. Immediately she started wagging her tail and running towards me so I could pick her up and put her up on the windowsill. It had snowed the night before and all Ellie and Fiona wanted to do was stare at the snow lying on the ground and balancing in the trees. I could see the joy radiating out of Ellie and it was coming from such a simple thing. This all made me stop and really appreciate just living in the moment and appreciating the small things. I know this all sounds so cliche, but I could have easily ignored Ellie and kept moving on with my day, but because I stopped and slowed down and gave her that little bit of joy, in turn, I was giving myself a little bit of joy. And time. And forgiveness. We can learn so much from dogs and in this moment I learned so much from Ellie. Sometimes, we need to just slow down and look out the window and find joy in even the tiniest of things.