Even in adversity, find beauty in nature
Summary
- Even when life deals us terrible cards, we can find a slice of nature and this can help us regain balance
Details
- When Anne Frank was hiding in the attic for years during the holocaust, she kept her happiness and sanity by finding a bit of nature - the sky, the tree growing below, birds swooping in the air to help her regain balance.
- If we find beauty in superficial things like material belongings, our happiness is doomed to fail
References
Quotes
n Wednesday morning, February 23, 1944, Anne Frank climbed up to the attic above the annex where her family had been hiding for two long years to visit Peter, the young Jewish boy who lived with them. After Peter finished his chores, the two of them sat down at Anne’s favorite spot on the floor and looked out the small window to the world they had been forced to leave behind. Staring at the blue sky, the leafless chestnut tree below, birds swooping and diving in the air, the two were entranced to the point of speechlessness. It was so quiet, so serene, so open compared to their cramped quarters.
It was almost as if the world wasn’t at war, as if Hitler had not already killed so many millions of people and their families didn’t spend each day at risk of joining the dead. Despite it all, beauty seemed to reign. “As long as this exists,” Anne thought to herself, “this sunshine and this cloudless sky, and as long as I can enjoy it, how can I be sad?”
She would later write in her diary that nature was a kind of cureall, a comfort available to any and all who suffer. Indeed, whether it was the blooming of spring or the starkness of winter, even when it was dark and raining, when it was too dangerous to open the window and she had to sit in the stifling, suffocating heat to do it, Anne always managed to find in nature something to boost her spirits and center herself. “Beauty remains, even in misfortune,” she wrote. “If you just look for it, you discover more and more happiness and regain your balance.”
It is not the sign of a healthy soul to find beauty in superficial things—the adulation of the crowd, fancy cars, enormous estates, glittering awards. Nor to be made miserable by the ugliness of the world—the critics and haters, the suffering of the innocent, injuries, pain and loss. It is better to find beauty in all places and things. Because it does surround us. And will nourish us if we let it.