Day-21-101 Day Reading Challenge-Spend a day without your watch-Who will cry when you die

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     Day-21-101 day Reading Challenge- a Mine2Shine initiative-9789186428

Spend a day without your watch

Last fall, I did something I have not done for many years: I left my watch at home and spent an entire day without looking at the time. Rather than living by the clock and planning everything I was going to do that day, I simply lived for the moment and did whatever I felt like doing. I became a true human being rather than merely a human doing.

Early in the morning, I went for a walk deep in the woods, one of my favorite things to do. With me, I carried an old paperback copy of Walden by the social philosopher Henry David Thoreau, a book I have come to love. After finding a beautiful place to sit and read, I experienced one of those moments of synchronicity where something perfect happens at just the right time. For me it was randomly opening the book and finding the following paragraph in front of me:

 

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live

what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, Unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan – like as to put to rout all that was not life…

I reflected on this great man’s words and soaked up the miraculous beauty of the scene around me. The rest of the day was spent in a bookshop, watching Toy Story with my kids, relaxing with the family on our patio and listening to my favorite pieces of music. Nothing expensive. Nothing complicated. But completely fun

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