Awe-filled – not just Awesome!
In an eventful year, the memorable experiences were those that filled me with awe.
I know what you’re thinking. So let me first tackle the obvious question – why did I choose ‘awe-filled’ and not ‘awesome’ for the title of this article?
As I looked back at 2023, a year filled with books, travels, celebrations, and much more, I wondered if there was a specific word to describe it. Of course, ‘awesome’ came to mind. But this commonly used word is used to describe everything from a delicious pizza to the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Clearly, ‘awesome’ was not capable of providing the kind of nuance I wanted to convey. I chose ‘awe-filled’ instead.
There are many ways to quantify a year that has passed – athletes tally their acts of physical prowess (marathons run, medals received), creatives list the pieces of art they created, and students highlight their graduation.
I wanted to look at the past twelve months differently. For some reason, 2023 had been a year of experiences that filled me with awe. And therefore I picked ‘awe-filled’ (not to be confused with awful) for my title.
Why awe? Why now?
Learning about awe
Earlier this year I came across a wonderful book titled, “Awe – The Transformative Power of Everyday Wonder” by Dacher Keltner, a professor at UC Berkeley.
He describes awe as “the feeling of being in the presence of something vast that transcends your current understanding of the world”.
The definition sounds intimidating but if you think about it, each one of us has experienced awe, not once but many times throughout a lifetime.
If you’re not sure if you have experienced awe, check these examples:
The most vivid moments of your child’s birth
The gentle vibrations under your hand when you touched an ancient giant redwood tree
The vibe at a music concert that transported you out of your body
I am sure you can think of many such instances that have stayed in your memory, bright and luminous against all the quotidian details that otherwise take up most of your bandwidth.
Keltner classifies our experiences with awe into eight categories; moral beauty, collective effervescence, nature, music, visual art/design/architecture, spirituality/religion/mysticism, life and death, and finally, epiphany.
The book had many outstanding examples of each kind of awe and I felt inspired to remain sensitive to these ‘out of this world’ experiences that infuse me with not just happy feelings but fill me with a sense of wonder.
Did I succeed?
How books impact my life
While I read many books each year, I don’t always follow everything that I come across. But a few books moved me to action. In 2022, there were two such books.
One was The Power of Regret – How Looking Backward Moves Us Forward by Daniel Pink.
Reading this book helped me deal with past decisions where I wish I had been bolder, had reached out to others more, or taken a different step when making difficult choices. After reading the book, I decided to choose differently, not because I feared regret but because I wanted my present life to be meaningfully informed by past regrets.
Meaning is a subjective understanding of our life and its inherent value.
With each passing year, meaning has taken center stage in my life and now I put every major decision to a simple test – will this add more meaning to my life at this time? And it has made a huge difference.
The other was Four Thousand Weeks – Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman. His astute observation that “You need to learn how to start saying no to things you do want to do, with the recognition that you have only one life”, helped me deal with FOMO, giving me the freedom to let some things slide knowing that at any given moment I could only do the next necessary thing. Every minute did not have to be productive.
Is it possible to chase awe?
On the heels of these life-changing books when I finished reading Keltner’s book, I knew that there was nothing I could do except stay open to being awed. And I was not disappointed.
My most memorable (and satisfying moments) of 2023 have been the following (in random order):
- Hiking a trail at the Big Tree at Storms River, South Africa on a rainy morning. Except for two friends, there were no humans in that ancient forest except for the plant life that it sustains. I felt a tingling in my body just from being fully present
- Being thrilled to hear from my former students about the birth of their children and crocheting little gifts for the newborns
- Learning the practice of reiki in a supportive group environment and going on to have my own experiences with the energies of the universe
- Becoming completely absorbed and getting into the flow of discussion about books in the book club that I co-founded in Singapore.
- Feeling humbled by the courage of women who stepped forward to share their stories of life after divorce on my podcast
- Immersing myself in the transformational beauty of visual art – the Van Gogh immersive art exhibition and a more recent interaction with a Singaporean artist who paints giant murals depicting life as it was in Singapore before it became a much sought-after metropolis
- Participating in a workshop to learn to sing bhajans, a group activity that was at once challenging and invigorating
Many other experiences made me stop and acknowledge the vastness and beauty of this world that we thoughtlessly inhabit on most days. But awe is very much within our reach IF we remain open to it.
Have I changed fundamentally as a result of these experiences? Yes and No. On a recent holiday when I saw a shooting star, I was speechless with astonishment. Yet, once I returned home I was consumed by the demands of daily life with no room for extraordinary experiences. It is easy to get submerged. Attention takes effort.
While I write this piece, glancing back at the year that was, the memory that arises brings forth an overwhelming sense of wonder when I saw that streak of green across a dark sky and felt both insignificant as well as grateful for this life of mine, one in which I can witness such beauty.
And so I make a silent commitment, again, to not sweat the small stuff, because life is so rich.
Hope you had an awe-inspiring 2023!
Image courtesy: Conrad88 at en.wikipedia – Transferred from en.wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7422515
