Upsides to the Down Economy/ Live Each Day as if lt's your Last

Synchronicity- not just an album by the Police, but the occurrence of 2 or more events occurring together in a meaningful manner. Lately, I have been getting signals from the universe to PAY ATTENTION in my life. I remember an interview with Diane Keaton talking about Goldie Hawn and how positive she was, like if she was drinking a cappuccino she would say "Isn't this the best cappuccino you've ever had?" Diane Keaton said she was so NOT like that and I have to admit, most days, I am so NOT like that either. Appreciative. Grateful. In awe and wonder of this world.

• In Women Food and God, the author recommends eating each meal like it's your last. If you were on Death Row and had a final meal, what would you have and how would you eat it? You would probably savor every bite, just like Goldie Hawn savors every sip of her cappuccino. I've been trying to meditate lately and the lady on the CD I listen to instructs you to "Feel every breath as if it were your first breath, feel every breath as if it were your last," and talks about how we take the breath, which is the force of life, for granted.
  
• I watched Our Town last week and have always loved Emily's monologue at the end:

"Goodbye world. Goodbye Mama and Papa. Goodbye to clocks ticking, my butternut tree, mama's sunflowers and food and coffee and new ironed dresses and hot baths and sleeping and waking. Oh earth, you're too wonderful for anyone to realize you."

• And then there's a quote a friend posted on her facebook page this week:
  
  "It is only when we truly know and understand that we have a limited time on earth and that we have no way of knowing when our time is up, that we begin to live each day to the fullest; as if it were the only one we had." Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross
  

The truth is we don't know which day, meal, breath, sip of cappuccino will be our last, so we should make the most of all of it. Eckhart Tolle, author of The Power of Now, says this is the secret to living. If you are walking across the room to get a pen, put all of your attention into it. Whatever you are doing, give it your undivided attention. (This, by the way, is the opposite of multi-tasking.) So no need to visit the old man at the top of the mountain or spend months in an ashram in India searching for wisdom and happiness. Like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, the power lies within you. Carpe Diem!