Things I Enjoy.

Today I thought about things that I enjoy.

I enjoy Micaela Ruiz's words and thoughts. She has a way with words: "I enjoy people because I have always seen possibility in every one of them. I see their greatness and their faults, people amaze me with their memories and dreams." I must also add that I truly enjoy making connections with people; whether those connections be spoken or unspoken. However, there is nothing greater than laughing with someone. I also love seeing and understanding what makes people who they are. A friend of mine said always acknowledge people. There's nothing worse than acting as if someone isn't there.

I enjoy Tim Gunn. He's such an inspiring human being. I sat at Meijer reading his book, Gunn's Golden Rules: Life's Little Lessons for Making It Work, and it was lovely. Here's a snippet that I enjoyed: "I often say in keynote addresses to college students that I figured out what I wasn't before I figured out what I was. The struggle to find out who you are is so hard. You have to keep eliminating things that you aren't and then see what's left over. Most important, you should never pretend. There's nothing harder than living life as someone you're not, even if being what you are is very hard, which is what being gay was for me for a very long time."

I enjoy singing so much. I get a real joy out of trying to sing like I can. The people that have LEGITIMATELY heard me sing: Brother Chan, Shelby, Alex, and Matt Benyo (and Nathan, but I thought for some reason he was sleeping each time). I never sing for real because my family has told me I can't. I sing when I'm home alone a lot.

I enjoy the senses; specifically smell. I recently read The Culture Code by this great french cultural anthropologist, Clotaire Rapaille, and he speaks about imprints. He says that 'there's a connection between learning and emotion and that without the latter the former is impossible. The stronger the emotion, the more clearly an experience is learned. The combination of the experience and its accompanying emotion creates something known widely as an imprint. Once an imprint occurs, it strongly conditions our thought processes and shapes our future actions. Each imprint helps make us more of who we are. The combination of imprints defines us and that every imprint influences us on an unconscious level.' I love the imprints we make with scents. For instance, I can't smell the Abercrombie men's cologne, Fierce, without instantly seizing up and remembering Taris hugging me and I can't smell pumpkin spice without thinking of our house. Sometimes, I will forget I was around a scent and I will faintly smell it on my clothing and I will instantly think back to a moment or person and a wave of emotion will sweep over me. This happened to me the other day when I put on my blue hoodie and smelled Hollister's room spray on me. Our senses are so powerful and they're something we don't think about. Any smell that we smell instantly becomes associated with something else and an imprint is made. I think that's amazing. I love that my first contact with something or the more powerful the contact is, will leave a memory in my mind of that particular thing. It'll momentarily paralyze me and make me nostalgic. I enjoy taking a moment to remember things like that because they are important to me.

I enjoy spending hours with a friend and losing track of time and not even caring that it's 4 am and you've been together for 10-12 hours. There aren't enough times like this in our lives. Make time for the people that matter to you. They're worth it.

I enjoy dreaming and the power of the imagination.

What do YOU enjoy?