Remember...Stop and Smell the Roses!

By Stephen C. Schultz

The breeze was warm as it swirled past me, making the short sleeves of my T-shirt ripple in the wind. The sun was just starting to peek over the mountaintop, yet it had been light for a couple of hours already. When you're at the base of a 10,000-foot mountain, it takes a while for any direct sunlight to appear.

Since it’s Saturday, my ritual usually involves edging the lawn and then mowing it. As I came around the side of the house to mow, I noticed some roses in an overgrown flower bed—a bed that’s home to various ground cover plants and untamed varieties of flora I couldn’t begin to identify.

Stop and smell the roses

Our home was built in the late 1800s by the local County Sheriff. Each spring, flowers and plants appear that I’ve never seen before. There are even some plants that come up every year that I once thought were weeds—until this year, when I was too busy to keep up with the weeding. They blossomed into beautiful little blue flowers! Who would’ve guessed?

The light was shining through some tree limbs and glancing off the leaves and petals of the roses. I actually thought to myself:

“I’m going to stop and smell the roses.”

Stop and smell the roses

I have to admit, with my allergies and the wind blowing, I didn’t smell much. But I did get some pictures as you can see on this page.

While the flowers are pretty, they aren't the purpose of this post. They did start me thinking, however. Are we so busy that we don’t stop and enjoy the subtle pleasures of life? Do we move from one activity to the next, always in a hurry? Are we stressed about how we look, what we drive, or what others think about us?

If so… why?

If not… why not?

Childhood

As adults, have we forgotten the innocence and wonder of playing as a child? You can read a few of my childhood experiences here:

Do we live in the present, or are we locked in the past or worried about the future? The only place we can truly make a difference is in the here and now.

Remember… Stop and smell the roses!

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