“Teach us to number our days…” ~ Psalm 90:12
Welcome to Day 10!
Here’s something for you to think about.
What did you have for breakfast yesterday? Where did you go? What did you see? Who did you spend time with? Does any of what you did really matter?
In his inspiring book, “Go Outside and Come Back Better”, author Ron Lizzi proposes the concept that many good days make up a good life.
He invites us to, “Picture a see-saw, (teeter-totter in some places). This balance represents your life…”
He then asks you to imagine that when you came to the end of every day, if it was a good day, you would place a stone on the right side of the seesaw. If it was a bad day, or at least a not-so-good day you would place a stone on the left side.
So for a very bad day, say the death of a loved one, you lost your job, or received bad news, the stone would go on the far left. And for a very good day, a great day, like – you got married, the birth of a child, landed your dream job, etc., you would place a stone on the far right. All the other days, so-so days, where nothing very remarkable happened, you would place a stone more towards the center; closer to the left if it wasn’t such a good day, and closer to the right if it was ok but yielded nothing memorable.
Are you with me so far?
So you’ve got this teeter-totter full of stones on top of it, and as you look at it, you begin to realize that the seesaw is off balance, tipping either to the right or left, for good or bad. Get the picture? This balance symbolizes the quality of your life.
For most of us, our seesaw would probably look pretty balanced, leaning only slightly to the left or right. Hopefully, more to the right, because we had more of what we would call “good days” than bad. These “good days”, Ron Lizzi calls “matterdays”.
“In short”, he says, looking at the balance you could say “some days matter and some days don’t. The day stone balance only holds stones for what I call matterdays.” He then points out that the farther to the left or right a stone is placed on a balance, the greater its impact on the balance. Therefore, he says, “a great matterday or an awful matterday will have a larger impact than a bunch of marginally good or bad matterdays”.
What if nearly every day for the rest of your life was a good or great “matterday”?
What if you could create great matterdays any time you wanted simply by doing things you enjoy that have a positive impact on your life and the lives of those around you?
Great matterdays are the ones you remember because of how you felt and what you thought. These can create new discoveries and feelings, new understandings and fresh outlooks on life and the world at large.
So how do we do this? Where do we begin?
Such days are available from… you guessed it, time spent in Nature!
Wild places have the power to renew and inspire us. They lift our gaze and create new memories and values. They refresh, restore, invigorate, and can even heal us! Research is verifying that time spent in nature impacts us in ways we can’t even fully understand. It surprises and delights us, freeing us from our everyday prisons of self-absorption and technology. Nature is the ultimate elixir.
And the more time you spend in the great outdoors, the better the quality of life you begin to have.
So here at Mountain Zen Den, I propose a new day of the week. In fact, from now on if you like, stop thinking of it as weekdays and the weekend – Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Let’s just start thinking of every day as Matterday.
Keep this in mind as you head out the door and explore the big, beautiful world that awaits you just off of your doorstep today!
And remember, as a wise man once said, “It’s not how many days you were alive, but about how many days you truly lived”. Go and live this day well, my friend…
We’ll see you Matterday!
Checklist for Day 10
☐ MEDITATION: Active meditation – Day 10 ~ “Creating a ‘Matter’ Day” (Listen to this active meditation on iTunes or here at Mountain Zen.)
☐ NATURE WALK: Walk, run, sit or lie down outside for 20 minutes, creating a new matterday to add to your “life balance”, (your seesaw). Make it your best day yet!
☐ JOURNAL: Write about your experience and one thing you are grateful for.
That’s it! See you back here tomorrow for another Matterday in the Park, (if you’re a Chicago fan you’ll be singing that song all day long… sorry for putting that earworm in your head…)
If you like post your pictures, experiences, observations and questions and share them on our 21-Day Nature Challenge Facebook Community Group page. We’d love to hear how it’s going for you!
Photos by Brett Wilson for Mountain Zen Den
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