I was at a talk recently, where a man described a story told to him by the author of “Mutant Message Down Under”, a book about a woman’s experiences with the Australian aborigines.  The story he told was about when she was awakened her first morning in the Outback, sore and tired from sleeping on the ground.  The people around her were very excited and she couldn’t understand why.  They invited her – in the darkness of a predawn morning – to look at what was happening.  She didn’t see anything unusual, nothing about which to be so excited.  They showed her again, and she still didn’t see it. Then, someone pointed out the small sliver of light that appeared on the horizon, excitedly telling her that they had all been given a new day to live.  They were celebrating the rising sun, the miracle of the dawning of another day.

We’ve explored this subject before in these experiments, and I wanted to bring it around again, as I found this story both delightful and inspiring.  How much we take for granted!  I often hear people complain about aging and not wanting to get older, with all the challenges that accompany that experience in this culture.  What I often think when I hear this is that it’s so easy to forget that growing older also means having the gift of more years of experience ahead of us.

For this week’s experiment, I invite you to notice how you respond to having another day of life.  When you awaken at the beginning of your day, notice if you are in a state of gratitude that you have a new day of experience and opportunity ahead of you.   If you’re delighted to greet the new day, what would help you carry that gratitude with you actively throughout the experiences that lie ahead?

Notice if you feel burdened by having to go to work, or by some other circumstance in your life.  If you have these feelings, or in some other way are unhappy that it’s a new morning, another day, explore what would allow you to greet the day with a sense of receiving a gift.  Given the constraints of the day ahead – whether because of work, family obligations, or whatever else, what would you like to accomplish or experience during this day that would feel good to you?  What small moments or opportunities does this day offer that would add to the richness of your life, even in the smallest sort of way? 

As with all the experiments, allow curiosity to be your close companion, as well as compassion for yourself.  We all have days where we think, “Oh no, not that again,” or “Yuck – it’s Monday.”  If these are thoughts that greet you in the morning, notice what happens if you say to yourself, “Oh, big surprise!  Here are those feelings again,” and then let them just move through rather than grabbing hold and building on them.  Check out what happens when you let them become like an itch – something to notice, scratch (by naming them), and then forget.  In this case, notice the thoughts or feelings, acknowledge them as familiar, and then let them move on through.  Remember that pushing them away or fighting with them only feeds them and makes them stronger.  By noticing them and letting them move on, which they will do naturally if you give them the space to do so, you give yourself room to play with what would happen if you simply notice that you have another day of life, that the story that is your life isn’t over yet.

For those who are living in terrible physical pain, or intolerable life circumstances and conditions, where each day is one more day of suffering, those of us who are not in such dire circumstances can ask ourselves how we might use the gift of a day of life to help change awful conditions for others.  And so, the gift of a new day might be the opportunity to support social, political, international or other community-based activities and efforts to improve the lives of everyone on the planet.

The invitation of this experiment is to have an opportunity to notice how you respond to the gift of a new day of life and what you might want to do with that gift that would be meaningful to you.