The Color Perspective

Our lives are filled with color.  We are surrounded by vividly contrasting colors in nature.  Most plants change color depending upon the season, our skies are filled with color and even our water can seem crystal clear to brightest of blues.  Flowers come in every color imaginable as do the many animals that roam this earth.

Many people, while surrounded by color live what I would call the gray life.  One where they merely exist and fail to see the wondrous beauty that we live with, they become blinded to the colors around them.  They see only the black and white of the snow in winter and fail to notice the varying shades of gray in the clouds.  Some even fail to notice those rare moments when the sky is bright blue against the whiteness of the recently fallen snow.

Our lives vary, much like colors do, from one person to the next.  Most of us at one point or another in our life find ourselves struggling to see anything but the black and white of life.  At time we must fight daily to even open our eyes to see that.

Not all of us however have experienced those moments when life is full and colorful.  When the world seems new and life seems wonderful and grand.  For some, this experience never happens, for others their lives are full of the color that surrounds us.

For me, when my days were darkest and the color was the most difficult to see it was the time spent on my knees that changed my world from the black and white to one full of color.  Our lives are relatively short, time spent seeing without color reduces our opportunity to see life in the grandest of ways possible.  As we let color back into our lives and begin to notice the beauty in all things  surrounding us, the colors become brighter and more vivid with each passing day.

The old saying, “take time to smell the roses” has a whole new perspective and deeper meaning when you also notice the color of the rose.