Once in a while, a message comes to my awareness that stays with me for days, sometimes weeks and even months.  Spontaneous occurrences like these hold more significance than I initially realize.  Through the unfolding moments of life, I come to discover the hidden lesson my soul wants me to learn.  This is the case when I stumbled across three sentences while perusing a used book store. A small book titled ‘Handbook for the Soul’ captured my attention.  It is a compilation of writings by renowned authors, psychologists, scientists, and leaders in the human motivation and personal development fields. Philosopher, Robert Fulghum is one of the contributing writers.

Robert states “One final thought on nourishing the soul. I try to make sure that I see the real news of the world that’s right in front of me, not just the recitation of disasters that passes for news on television. The real news, the knowledge of what’s going on in my immediate world and immediate life, sustains life.”  These words have stayed with me since I first read them.

What I eventually came to realize is that quality of life can be very simple.  We do not need to regularly fill our minds with world events in order to experience more richness in daily life. We need only pay attention to our immediate surroundings. What if we all switched from a daily dose of news to a daily dose of humour?  How different would our world be?  Robert Fulghum ends each day by reading something funny, which makes the bed shake and then annoys his wife!  He then shares the humour with her and together they laugh.  This is the perfect example of how simple it can be to experience richness in daily life!