Taste Your Life

What does your life taste like?

Sounds like a strange question, and it could be hard to imagine what that may mean.   Does life have a taste? 

Let’s start with something we know has a taste:  food.  What does your food taste like?  Think about that.  Think about the food you ate in the last forty-eight hours. Can you say what it tasted like?  Did you actually taste it?   

Often we do not taste our food, we just consume it.  We eat too fast, or on the run. We eat while watching TV or in the car or at our desks or straight from the cardboard box. We don’t taste it.  Imagine if you slowed down and really tasted your food.  What would the experience be?  Just by slowing down and allowing yourself to taste your food, you could increase the quality of your experience, and therefore the quality of your life.

Yet there is more to tasting life than just food.  What does the sun feel like as it kisses your skin?  What is the flavor of the air you as you take it in? What is the texture of the water you stand in, splash in, and swim through? The song of a bird, the buzz of a bee, the bark of a dog -- all are there for you to taste.

The rise of the sun, the glow of the moon, the burst of a cloud, raindrops on your face, taste, taste, taste!  It’s all there waiting for you.  I’m reminded of a story Eckhart Tools likes to tell: 

A beggar had been sitting by the side of the road for thirty years.
One day a stranger walked by.

"Spare some change?" mumbled the beggar.
"I have nothing to give you," said the stranger. Then he asked: "What's that you're sitting on?"
"Nothing," replied the beggar. "Just an old box. I've been sitting on it for as long as I can remember.
"Ever look inside?" asked the stranger.
No," said the beggar. "What's the point? There's nothing in there."
"Let’s have a look inside," insisted the stranger. The beggar, reluctantly, managed to pry open the lid. To his astonishment and disbelief, he saw that the box was filled with gold. 

I am that stranger who has nothing to give you, who is telling you to look inside. Not inside any box, as in the parable, but somewhere even closer: inside yourself.

Every day your life is a treasure chest filled with gold, if you will take time to lift the lid and look inside.  Taste your life and all it offers, every day. Allow yourself to experience the day as you are in it.  A source of joy is waiting for you to taste.  Joy in life is right now in this moment as you reading, this moment. Stop and taste it.

Take time each day to connect yourself with the taste of life! Experience a full meal of joy each and every day.

In appreciation on Father’s Day to both my mother and father who live an example of tasting life…