Rediscovering the Sense of Awe

As I walked back from class the other day, I couldn’t help but gaze across the street and become fixated on the view of the mountains. It was a clear day, and after some recent snow, the mountains were coated. They stood tall, their sharp white peaks contrasting with the blue sky. I kept walking, but I could not tear my eyes away from the view. Something about it was just so simple and beautiful.

Awe. Wonder. Amazement. Admiration. We’ve all had instances of feeling these powerful emotions that are somehow able suck all the air out of our bodies and leave us speechless. This sense of awe can arise from a multitude of different things, from witnessing a breathtaking sunset—the clouds saturated with pink and highlighted with strokes of gold, bright against the darkening indigo sky—to having an epiphany about the meaning of life. Moments like these, whether small or large, seemingly significant or insignificant, can be insightful of what we truly value.

As young children, we experienced this sense of awe often; we would become fascinated by things that may be completely mundane to us now. The unique patterns of each falling snowflake or the rainbow of suds coating the windshield during a carwash may have once evoked amazement. As we have grown up and matured however, it seems that we have lost this natural curiosity of the world around us. We have become familiar to our surroundings and negligent to details. Now, we may not even consider the intricate structure of a snowflake and rather become annoyed that we will have to shovel later; we may sit on our phones during the carwash and never even glance up, too engrossed in the digital world.

But this sense of awe is not lost. Rather, it’s buried, hiding somewhere. It is pushed to the back of our minds by the stresses of our daily lives. We can access our feeling of wonder by stopping and taking a moment to truly pay attention to the world around us; we can again feel that innocent, childlike giddiness that is so refreshing and grounding. Our natural sense of wonder will never disappear, for humans are the most curious creatures.







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