Appreciating Living My Big Dream

My big dream growing up was that I’d write a book that would make it onto the shelves of the Eason’s bookstore on O’Connell Street in Dublin. This happened. Not only that, but I even got to do a book signing there as part of promotional tour. I’d achieved my dream, and I knew at the time that I needed to appreciate it or I’d regret it later, yet, I didn’t seem quite able to. My attention was on what was coming next. This small bit of success had gone to my head, and I was busy planning my life as a best-selling writer.

There is nothing that I would change about my past. I accept the good and the bad as my journey (this wonderful adventure that I call my life). Yet, if there is a regret, it is that I didn’t appreciate things more. Even the darkest days of my life would have been so much better if I’d just taken a minute to appreciate.

I think most of us realize that there is something wrong with not appreciating our life. We know deep down that we will regret this later. It is not our lack of relationships, money, or success that we are likely to lament on our deathbed but that we didn’t appreciate what we had. This why after that book tour, I spent a lot of time thinking about appreciation (I had plenty of time because it soon became apparent that my writing career wasn’t going to take off like a rocket).

The thing that surprised me most when I started to think about appreciation was that I’d no real idea about what it was. This was such a common word, yet what did it mean? What would I need to do now for me to be appreciating this moment? What kind of life would I need to live that would mean on my deathbed there would be no regrets about lack of appreciation? It took me years to be able to answer this question. Initially, the more I looked at this word, the more confused I felt.

I now know that appreciation means giving my full attention to. It sounds obvious (Zen 101), yet for a long time I just didn’t seem able to pull it off. A big hint was the awakening experience that I had on a London bus back in the nineties when Paul temporarily disappeared and all that was left was life without a center. To appreciate means to offer the spotlight to what is being experienced rather than to the illusionary experiencer. It is like there are two dials – one dial is called Paul and the other is the experience – appreciation is when the Paul dial is turned right down to the minimum and the experience dial is turned up to max.