Last week I was in Portugal for work. Senior leaders of major companies from across the world came together for a transformational experience led by the fearless and fabulous Erica Ariel Fox.
I am in awe of her creative and emergent approach but my commitment to confidentiality means I can’t share about it here.
So I will highlight a much smaller moment of creativity that touched me.
A bit of beauty in a public park in Cascais.
Taking care of us all week was a lovely man named Edgar. Edgar was very proactive and attentive, eager to make sure we had everything we needed. Efficient and thoughtful, it's immediately clear when you meet Edgar that he's a gem of a guy.
During a break mid-week, a few of us were grabbing a snack and someone commented about the spread of fruit skewers and cakes, "How beautiful!"
Edgar beamed. Pride radiated from every pore. "I've been working on my presentation" he confessed.
I felt touched that this man, with all his myriad responsibilities, was actively taking time and energy to try to make his work more beautiful.
It reminded me of another moment many years ago when I was living in Pakistan. There was an older Pashtun man, Mir Khan, who would bring us tea. One day, he set my green tea down and next to it he placed a tiny plate with three jasmine blossoms on it. Just because.
I've been exploring "beauty" as my word of the year. And I think my default associations with the word are grand and poetic. But in many ways I feel more touched by these micro-moments of people giving that little extra attention to the aesthetics of a thing.
So I'm left with a question.
What could I do to make my work, my home, my relationships just a little bit more beautiful?
I don't have any immediate ideas that come to mind, but I think the first step is to deepen my appreciation of the beauty that is already around me.
Psychologist Rhett Diessner is one of the leading researchers on the appreciation of beauty, which includes natural beauty, artistic beauty, and moral beauty. He shares a treasured memory from his childhood, a prayer from the Diné people (the Navajo):
In beauty happily I walk
With beauty before me I walk
With beauty behind me I walk
With beauty below me I walk
With beauty above me I walk
With beauty all around me I walk
The world is bursting with beauty.
The more I can soak it up and let myself be nourished by the beauty of nature, the beauty of creativity, and the beauty of human virtue, I think the more that I will naturally feel moved to contribute my own modest offerings, making micro-moments a little bit more beautiful.