They way in which we view the world around us is entirely up to us. If we think it’s bad, then it will be; and visa-versa. An article written for the Huffington Post says much better than I could the philosophy behind the adage “perception is reality..”.  I pasted an excerpt below but you can read the whole article [here]…

“[Of Hawaii] Every day was a new opportunity to experience the joy of being in Paradise. And most of all, to not only be in Paradise, but to be there in the company of my dearly beloveds, it was all beyond the pale. But all too soon, it was time to leave Paradise and return home.

Back at home, I noticed myself wanting to prolong the experience I’d just had. I wasn’t ready for it to be over. My heart was still back in Hawaii, as if keeping that experience alive in memory could somehow buffer the reality of the everyday world, which while a not a bad place to be, lacks a few of the bells and whistles I’d just experienced.

Or did it? I began to wonder, what is this thing I’m calling “Paradise”? Is it a physical place, or is it more a state of mind? With that inquiry in mind, I began to look around my life with the intention of discovering Paradise, not in the exotic, but right here in the ordinary, everydayness of it all. And guess what? I found it! And what’s more, it’s always been here.

I’ve discovered that Paradise is a state of mind in which the observer gives one’s self completely over to the moment. Body, mind, spirit, and soul — all align in a moment of “exquisite recognition,” pure presence and a conscious appreciation of being alive, right here, right now.

Looking out through the sliding glass doors of my kitchen, I discover paradise right outside my door. There on my deck is a riot of color, geraniums and hydrangeas that I’ve watered and nurtured and are now taking off like gangbusters in the warmer weather. The winds that blow across the San Francisco Bay and sweep across my deck might just have traveled from Hawaii to get there. The sun I watched set every evening in Hawaii and the moon I watched rise there are the very same sun and moon that entered into an annular eclipse last Sunday evening, visible from my deck.

The truth is, every moment has this potential seeded within it, for paradise is what we bring to the moment through our willingness to open and be receptive to the beauty that is already there.

It’s far easier to receive beauty when one is removed from the distractions of the everyday world. This is why we take ourselves on “vacations,” to escape the mundane and enter the realm of imagination and magic. In other words, to enter the landscape of the soul. Paradise is soul territory.

Minus the demands of the mundane, the sublime is always waiting to be discovered. It’s always there, right under our noses. That we have a greater challenge accessing the sublime when life calls us to the ordinary does not negate the greater truth; the riches of life accompany us wherever we go. Paradise is in the eye of the beholder. Seek and ye shall find.”