It’s a drop past 9AM here on the farm. Looking out my office window, the frost in the fields is slowly giving way to the warmth of the sun. My wife and son are snuggled in our bed while my faithful hound guards the house against the miscreant rabbits of her dreams. What a swell morning it is.

One of the blogs I’ve been drawn to over the past year is Leo Babauta’s Zen Habits. As the name suggests, the blog details a number of habits one can cultivate to develop a more mindful approach to living. In his latest piece, Leo suggests tips for how to savor life. Based on the excerpt below, the act of savoring life can readily be defined as mindfulness:

It’s still dark out and the world remains asleep as I write these words, and I’ve just finished my morning meditation.

I sip my coffee, and savor the stillness, the quietude, the space of being able to think without distractions of the Internet or others.

This savoring … it’s a magical act.

[Link]

Given how frenetic life has been the past several weeks, I appreciate the idea of savoring life a great deal. But I’ve found that as simple as the notion of mindfulness is, it’s still more than a bit difficult to implement into my routine. 

The mundane things are the most difficult to savor because they simply aren’t that interesting. For example, all the mindfulness in the world will not fool me into thinking that vacuuming is a savorable act because it isn’t. Vacuuming is a chore that needs to be done because the living room is hideous and my in-laws are en route to see their daughter and grandson. In fact, they arrive in a few hours. But the same can be said for driving, paying bills, sitting in class, etc. 

The irony of our lot is that so much of our lives are spent doing the mundane things we are indifferent toward. How does one savor the unsavorable?