Hero with Zero

Seeing the world through mindfulness

Learning to Zen

Mindfulness. I love life when I am out of my own head. In this awareness of presence, everything in life becomes more vivid. Everything just becomes amazing and wonderful. Unfortunately, we are living in a world where time is money and money is time, we lose our sense of appreciation for the little transient things in life.

These transient moments are the in-betweens of our hustles. All of these moments just become blurs, blahs and etc's. You know the saying "it's the simple things in life"? It really is the simple things in life that make a world of a difference. Only when we become aware and able to witness them. That's why we need to learn to slow down and practice mindfulness.

The most precious moments in life are the ones that can never be bought. It’s lived through. Purely experienced. And this is how mindfulness helps bring this realization into our lives. By being amazed by all the previous things that have gone unnoticed.

Getting my Zen on

I have been practicing to be more mindful and engaged when I do anything. Simple tasks like brushing my teeth, driving my car or even when I am walking. Which, I like to get some walking done on my lunch breaks when time permits. When I do get the opportunity, I like to go to a nearby park to take walks.

I usually speed walk through a few rounds on the trail there and then get some reading time. Every time I go, at least once a week, I always see a gentleman there. He sits off the trail in the gravel directly behind the tennis courts.

He doesn’t bother anybody nor does he care what goes on around him. I try not to draw any assumptions about people and just observe as is. But as time has gone on, he appears to be homeless. He always wears the same clothes with the same dark smudges.

The Man with the Cape

Then one day…as I turned around the tennis courts this particular day…I saw the man with the cape shining in all his glory. He was sitting there feeding the pigeons. In my life book, he is my Hero. Why? Because of kindness and selflessness.. I don’t know his story, but from what I have seen I know he lives minimally. He may be overlooked or ignored by society, like the pigeons he was feeding, yet he extended his kindness and shared what little he had.

Here is a homeless man who barely has enough for himself yet he still shares whatever little he has. This was a really heart-warming moment for me. That made me realize that even in the harshest situations of life, we humans still have within us a spark of light.

This spark, such a beautiful quality within us, is humanity’s innate special power. Kindness and compassion. Many of us are so occupied with our day to day robot routines even in the in-betweens, we are constantly thinking of our routines. We just need to give ourselves time to slow down and actually see the world. Without my practice of mindfulness, I don’t think I could have witnessed this moment if I wasn’t fully present.

Our lives are fueled with high octane. We don’t realize we are always in full throttle. Even the race cars that are built for Nascar still have to make pit stops. Those cars are built for the race but can’t sustain full throttle all throughout the 500 laps. So like these cars, we need to slow down, pace ourselves and take a pit stop every so often. You don’t have to come to a complete stop. Just slow down. Find yourself a good pace and enjoy the ride. This is how mindfulness is for me. Keeping up a good pace and enjoying life.

As I try to gain more insight into life through the practice of mindfulness, I encourage you to slow down for a bit and take a look at the world around you. Be appreciative and marvel at everything you see.

As always, thank you for taking your time to read my rambles and I hope you can bring in mindfulness into your life too.

Nick