Way Better than Counting Nose Hairs!

I rather enjoy going to the dentist! What the…?

In the last 8 weeks, I’ve had to visit the dentist 4 times. Even though it’s been expensive, it’s been ok: chewing and eating will be so much more fun now, and the visual experience, designed to redirect thoughts and assist comfort levels, is spectacular!

Gone are the days of my youth where I passed my time in the chair, counting the nose hairs up my dentist’s nose! In place of this tradition, mounted on the ceiling of my current dentist’s surgery, is a huge flat screen, that plays the most amazing nature video loops, that help the time in the chair pass comfortably. It’s incredible!

Yesterday, while in the chair, I was treated to scenes from sunny Spain. The visit before, were the coves of the Caribbean, and the trip before that… (well, I’m guessing you get the point). They’re all live shots too. You get to watch the most amazing drone footage of some of the world’s most beautiful scenes, through the eyes of a camera lens, soaring high above landscapes, oceans and waterways. The detail is mesmerizing. Things that you could never hope to see are brought to life in vivid and explicit detail. I spend the whole time ‘noticing’ stuff. It’s amazing!

Earlier in the year, I wrote about noticing details that fly by way too quickly, unless we intentionally slow down and take the time to take it all in. Yesterday, sitting in the dentist chair afforded me the time and space, to observe scenes of wonder, and digest small details. I noticed deep sand banks that dog-legged themselves out from beaches, where dots of people were sunning themselves at a resort. I noticed rocks and reefs that lay underwater, as the camera moved along the coastline. Further down the coast, enormous cliffs emerged and swallowed up the beaches and landscapes. Sparsely, but noticeable, were small shrubs growing on the steep rock faces. Down below, a small fishing boat was flurting dangerously close to breakers that smashed and pounded against the cliffs. Oh, wait… peering closer, I noticed that white specks were, in actual fact, seagulls nesting and flying about the nooks and crags. It wasn’t just the camera moving, but everything was alive. At first it looked like a picture, but it was so much more. It was a portrait in motion, and if I hadn’t been looking closely at the whole scene, I would’ve missed these smaller details within the greater visual plot. It completely captured my attention. It was breath taking!

In another scene, as the drone journeyed closer, I noticed huge man-made, cube shaped boulders, strategically placed in the water to form a T-shaped breaker to shelter beachgoers from the open ocean. In another scene, high gentle slopes were molded and carpeted over by rolling hills and knolls of grass, which completely covered the tops of the rocky cliffs, and were in stark contrast to the lumpy and rough pounding waves below.

“All done!” My dentist’s declaration, returned me to reality. “Amazing isn’t it? The detail is incredible. I could literally sit for days, and never stop noticing new stuff. There’s just so much going on!”, he added. His insight, was innocently profound.

What have we been missing? What details have passed us by simply because we didn’t notice it? Do we take time to notice details? And what if we turned the camera onto people, be they strangers, acquaintances, or dear friends or family? What wonderful things have we missed in those around us? What have we missed in the ones we love the most? And if the camera were aimed back at us for a moment, what things have others missed in us?

With only a few weeks to go before school winds up for another year, may I encourage us all to take time to notice great things in others. Like the brilliant details within nature, there are striking things (and equally as beautiful), in those around us. When we look at people, what do we see? Do we see wonderful and exotic examples of life, bursting with inner beauty? Do we see someone we deeply admire? Do we see marvelous works of art in people, textured with multiple layers of color and exuberance? And, in the practice of noticing the good in people, you may even model the behavior that eventually can return by ways of others noticing great things in us (not that this should be the motivation). Or, maybe noticing good things in people, will cause us to celebrate each other more often. And, maybe that could lead to a better appreciation of people, and maybe lead on to us becoming warmer strangers, acquaintances, friends and family?

A great author, once included the phrase in one of his stories, “I am with you Mighty Warrior!” And, the person that it referred to, wasn’t yet a ‘great warrior’ but a farmer! Could seeing the good in people, and speaking the good into existence work?

Ok, I’m curious!

”I hereby tend my ‘notice’, that I am giving up counting nose hairs, and intend replacing the tradition with another ‘notice’: that of noticing the good in others.”

Please bring in your recycling to the school. The mobile reciptacle is stationed at the front carpark behind the bus shelter in school hours as the students are part of the program and move the wheelie bin between 9.15 am and 2.00 pm.

Scouts recycling partner have dontated one Hundred percent of the donations go to our P&C Association.