If you’re not in awe, you’re not paying attention.

So if you are in awe, are you paying attention?

I really don’t want any bumper stickers on my car, but the occasional one is worth reading again. Some just hit you the right way, the right timing, the right frame of mind, the right time of morning and just enough to have you give the dog leash to the kids so you can go back and take a picture to try to remember it. In fact, that’s how I seem to remember most things: photo and then write about it. Hmm, maybe I’m onto something. Back to awe … and paying attention.

Sometimes I feel like I’m part of a secret society of those who are in awe. It doesn’t require much to join: just, well, that’s about it: be in awe. In awe with pretty much everything around you, happy to be alive, grateful for every step, breath, and twinkle of a child’s eye.

But the definition is awe is subjective, which is the beauty of it. You can be in awe of anything (and everything), it doesn’t matter, just that you are. It’s a state of mind, I think, and I think I have it, I think I’m in it. I hope I am. Maybe it’s one of those things where you just have to say that you are to be.

But I think the idea that I see this bumper sticker on the way to school and it makes me stop, come back, take a picture and then think more about it, smile to myself and somehow, knowingly, feel like I know something that no one else does (but actually everyone else does) and it makes the world go around. Or at least my world go around.

What are we then paying attention to? I guess it’s a matter of perspective.