21DJC Day 11 – Out of Your 5 Senses, Which is the Most Important to You, and Why?

This is Day 11 of the 21-Day Journaling Challenge held in Nov 2011. The challenge is now over but you can do the tasks in your own time. Visit the overview page for all the challenge tasks.

Hi everyone – Welcome to Day 11 of 21DJC! :)

Yesterday’s question was: “Who Do You Enjoy Spending Time With?“. (Read the responses.) A number of you immediately kicked off your answers by saying “Myself”, which I found somewhat alarming given the intent of the question wasn’t to ask you to “choose” between spending time with yourself or others. (Perhaps I could have made the question clearer when I wrote the post.)

While I recognize the merit of enjoying time with yourself (I definitely enjoy my alone time, and I think it’ll be alarming if one doesn’t enjoy being with oneself), the intent of yesterday’s question is to make you aware of who you enjoy spending time with, know why you enjoy spending time with them, and appreciate them for being in your life. That’s the first objective.

The second objective, which is more subtle, is to support you in making empowering friendships. By being aware of the traits that resonate with you, you can consciously gravitate towards the people who share those traits. This helps you to make friendships that support you, friendships that you bring the best out of you.

This is not an attack towards introverts, because I myself enjoy introvertism. Neither is it an avocation to be an extrovert. Extroverts are people who enjoy spending time with others over spending time by themselves, while introverts are people who prefer alone time over social time. Whether you are an introvert or extrovert though, you can enjoy time with yourself and time with others at the same time – it’s not a mutually exclusive relationship.

Yesterday’s question was about identifying who you enjoy spending time among people you already spend time with, not about asking you to choose between whether you enjoy spending time alone or whether you enjoy spending time with others.

There will always be certain people we like to hang around more, compared to other people in our life. For example, I believe some of you enjoy spending time with the other participants here, during challenges. Who are these people we like to spend time with? Why do we like to spend time with them? And how can we meet more of such people, so as to expand our consciousness to greater heights?

At the end of the day, such people help to bring the best out of ourselves. By consciously building these friendships, we create a powerful support network that supports us in our growth journey.

For me, I enjoy spending time with people who have high consciousness. People who focus on what matters in life, and not daily trivialities and gossip. People who have a keen willingness to learn and grow. People who are earnest in their communication, and do not speak behind other people’s backs. People who pursue their passions and make the best out of life. People who give space for others to grow and don’t impose their beliefs on others. People who believe in working hard and are willing to work hard, as opposed to people who skive and try to look for the easy way out.

This awareness help me realize why I feel drained when I hang out around lazy people who often complain, procrastinate, and gossip about others. It also helps me realize why I feel energized when I’m around certain people, because our energies rub off each other. Hence, I make sure to limit the time I spend with the former group, and spend more time with people in the latter group. Doing so helps me to maintain a positive, conscious state of mind.

With that said, let’s now move to today’s question!

21DJC Day 11

For most of us, we are blessed with 5 senses – Sight, Hearing, Taste, Smell and Touch. We have a 6th sense that is Intuition, but it’s not in the scope of today’s question. Today, I’d like you to think about this:

Out of Your 5 Senses, Which is the Most Important to You, and Why?

Is it the sense of sight? The sense of hearing? The sense of taste? The sense of smell? Or the sense of touch? And why?

Your Task Today:

1. Reflect and answer today’s question. There’s no word limit – whether minimum or maximum. Write as few or as many words as you want. It’s all up to what you want to express!
2. Share your answer. After you are done writing, copy and paste your answer in the comments area and post it there.
3. Check out other participants’ answers. Other participants will be sharing their answers too, so feel free to read and reply to their answers. This is a group course, so let’s support each other in these 21 days.

((Images: Empty book for journaling, Woman breathing))