“The more you engage and connect, the more engagements and connections you will have.”
― Loren Weisman

Every day we’re able to wake and take a breath is a gift beyond measure. For with each day, the breeze we feel upon our face is a renewed breath of life given to us without cost. But as many of us dwell outside of our present experience, these treasures can often go unnoticed, or even worse, unacknowledged.

For those that don’t know, I’m a father. I’m also a single parent. I have a sixteen year old daughter and an eighteen month old son. My son lives with me full-time, and correspondingly takes up nearly every second of my day.

My schedule revolves around him. When I’m home, he has full attention from morning until bedtime. Even when I’m at work and he’s at care, my thoughts are always on him. Wondering about him. Wondering if he’s OK, and if he’s cared for properly.

This is just the simple nature of being a parent, and of being engaged in life beyond my own self.

But for the first nine months of his life I was blessed to stay at home with him full time. This experience not only bonded us, but created a space for us to grow together. To learn together, and to experience life together.

For the first time, I could easily see life through a set of eyes other than my own–His. We slept and played on the couch, we took multiple naps. We took rides just to take rides, so I could show him the outside world, and to get out of the house. And it was during these simple times where I found the most joy.

It was where I found the breath of life, and the gift that is given to us all each morning.

We should all remember that it is not what we do that defines our experience here, but how we choose to see it. For me, reading a book to my son is just as exhilarating as climbing a rock face. Taking him to the park and simply watching him run and stumble is more rewarding than any accolade or achievement I can imagine. And, at the end of the day, watching him fade off into sleep is perhaps more intoxicating than any drug available.

It is the simplest of things which we overlook the most.

These are our most sacred moments, carved into our hearts. They visit upon us an active engagement within the present moment. During these times, we are not only immersed in Now, we are actively living, actively feeling and actively being who we were always meant to be.

Whether these moments are of you with your children, or when you’re quiet and content, sitting on a porch chair staring off into oblivion, you always know when you feel life swirling around you.

The moment is always available, and when you feel that energy of peace, or of perfect resonance with life, this is the moment that makes everything else make sense.

Life is truly a breeze. But you must feel it, for this is when we are alive.

I hope that all can recognize the gifts they are blessed with here.

And in our recognition, we should be wise not to become lost in thoughts of yesterday, and not to be mesmerized by a future that may or may not happen.

We should be enamored with life, here, Now.

And engage with all that we love.