I have the privilege of working in an 15th floor office with a view. Most people with offices downtown wouldn’t consider my view to be a great view (because I can’t see the Arch or the baseball stadium from my window), but it’s interesting enough that most people who come to my office look out the window and comment about what they can see. Even though my window is north-facing, I get some sunlight (there’s no tall buildings butted right up to my building).
What’s interesting to me is that I actually took the time to notice my view today and I was reminded that it is a interesting and worthy view, in an urban downtown sort of way. You can see lots of activity on the street. People walking about. You can see serious construction activity in the old buildings where new lofts are being carved out. During the day, hundreds of people walk the streets of St. Louis downtown. Due to the increasing number of lofts, we have a noticable increase in night-time foot traffic too. You can now see lots of people walking dogs after work. That was a rare site a few years ago. More and more restaurants are now opening.
Again, what is interesting to me today is that I had to make myself take the time to look. I spend hundreds of hours in this office every month and I don’t think I’ve taken the time to consciously look out my window for many weeks, perhaps months.
Many of us get so very busy that we get tunnel-vision. And it almost gets crazy. It gets to the point where, if you want to do something–anything at all, even something fun–you need to put it on your Outlook calendar. Maybe I should put a recurring event on Outlook each month: “Look out your window to see what there is to be seen.” Sounds like good therapy.
It makes me wonder what else I’m not paying attention to.
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