Friend B. just sent a link to this TedX Talk by DeWitt Jones Celebrate What's Right With the World. It is pretty easy to get rather down about the news cycle these days, weeks and months. But maybe it’s because we choose to see our lives through the lens that the media asks us to put on. There are other choices. What if we chose the lens of falling in love with our world again, with all our relations, including rain? What if we started the day by not logging into that lens but choosing first to see something new in the new day dawning, to really take in the gift of that first cup of coffee or just sit with it in the quiet? DeWitt was a photographer for National Geographic and his vision for life is what informed his photography.
‘When I put on that lens of celebration, when I really allow myself to see and connect with the beauty of the world, I feel like I’m a cup that’s so full it’s just about to overflow. I feel… I feel like I’m falling in love. That's what it feels like. I mean, think about it. Think of a time when you've been in love, and you get up in the morning and you stagger into the bath, and you go,
"Ah, the toothbrush, what a miracle!" It's followed by the soap dish and the towel. The whole world is beautiful, and you are so full and so fired up.
And that doesn't surprise me, because when we're in love, we're in touch with a source of incredible energy. We call it-- Passion! Passion! What most of us wouldn’t give to be connected to the energy of passion on a daily basis.”
“Every time I allow myself to fall in love with all of it, I really do see a world of light and possibility. Come on, you’ve all seen it -- not just in the faces of your children and your grandchildren, it’s out there all the time. And, you know, the beauty of that world-- our world, shows us a wonderful example of how to live, of how to love. Of a banquet laid, of a cup overflowing.
And I know that if we let that beauty fill us up, that we, too, will overflow, and it'll come out in everything we do. In the ideals we hold, in the passion and compassion we feel, in the love we are no longer afraid to express. That perspective, that lens, it will change your life, as it has changed mine.”