Recently, a friend asked me, “What is your paradise?”
Good question, I thought. Most people would probably picture a sugar sand beach with gin clear waters beneath a white rope hammock swaying gently in the salty breeze. Yep, sounds a lot like paradise to me. Then again, I absolutely love relaxing in a chaise within arm’s reach of a crystalline pool under a shockingly blue desert sky, pale mountains shimmering in the distance as you make like a Gila Monster basking in the heat.
From a dictionary point of view, paradise can be any “place of extreme beauty, delight, or happiness” so it makes sense that the one-man’s-trash cliché applies to paradise as well. My ski bum friends find paradise at 6000-feet, while others find it at London’s street level. Sometimes I think I’ve found it in a comfortable corner chair with a small table of coffees, chocolates and pastries surrounded by good friends, or with family gathered around a table filled with tortillas and carne asada.
The more I think about it, the more I realize that I find a little bit of paradise almost every day. Granted, I have to look harder some days than others, but nearly every day there is a moment when I really couldn’t ask for more, when all is right in the world around me. I’m learning that paradise is not a physical place so much as a state of being. Happiness. Contentment. Isn’t that what we seek when pursuing paradise?
What is your paradise? Is it limited to idyllic surroundings, or is it all in the state of your mind? Feel free to share your paradise with a Comment!
