The blog will pick a word of the week, to share & explore the selected word. Here’s an expression for the word – surprise.

 In Life In Three Dimensions, Shigehiro Oishi shares his journey of surprising discoveries & offers us a groundbreaking new understanding of happiness. What makes a good life? Is it the simple, predictable pleasures that we call happiness? Is the answer a deeper sense of meaning & purpose? Both happiness & meaning as paths to a good life have decades of scientific research to support them.

But in the recent years, Oishi has uncovered a third dimension to a good life – psychological richness. A psychologically rich life prioritises curiosity, discovery & exploration of a variety of diverse experiences. These can be as simple as taking a nature hike or as complex as moving to a new country. The key to a psychologically rich experience is a resilient mindset & a shift in perspective that helps us to learn & grow.

Life In Three Dimensions explores the lives truly defined by psychological richness – those of prominent people like Steve Jobs or Oliver Sacks, successful characters from literature & film, as well as ordinary people who in college or beyond, embraced surprises, belief & unique challenges to deepen or enrich their lives. In this wise & wonderful read, Oishi shares how anyone can build a fuller, more authentic life. Surprisingly inspirational.

Disclaimer

The blog will pick a word of the week, to share & explore the selected word. Here’s an expression for the word – surprise.

Disclaimer

The blog will pick a word of the week, to share & explore the selected word. Here’s an expression for the word – surprise.

Natural systems – our weather, ecosystems or animal behaviour are made of countless interacting parts. Because we can’t track or predict all of them, nature often behaves in ways we didn’t expect. Full of beautiful & surprising phenomena like the northern lights. When something breaks our sense of time in nature, it feels astonishing.

Evolution explores endless possibilities. It’s adaptable, resulting in imperfect solutions that still work perfectly together, with bizarre adaptations. We don’t see most colours of light, we don’t hear most sounds in nature, we don’t feel the magnetic fields or infrared heat patterns. When science reveals these hidden layers, nature suddenly feels magical.

A forest, a coastline or a sky, they seem constant, but they’re in a state of perpetual flux. Surprise happens when we catch a rare glimpse of alignment like a solar eclipse. There are millions of species still undiscovered, natural processes that we don’t fully understand or planets in our universe that still remain a mystery. Our ignorance leaves a huge space for surprise.

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The blog will pick a word of the week, to share & explore the selected word. Here’s an expression for the word – surprise.

Classical music is fundamentally an interplay between expectation & deviation. Surprise is the force that keeps the listener engaged, emotionally moved & mentally alert. Several classical works have been inspired by the idea of surprise – sudden contrasts or unexpected musical twists like a unique orchestral burst interrupting the calm. Silence in the middle of a melody is the most effective surprise.

When the music deviates from its own established narrative, we feel a sense of what just happened? Classical harmony has strong patterns, breaking these rules creates a pleasant shock. Music builds a sort of pulse. If accents or rhythms violate that pulse, it creates a welcome jolt. We usually rely on rhythmic predictability & breaking that pattern brings creativity & re-discovery of possibility. Even a new instrument with an unusual colour can create a striking moment of surprise.

Disclaimer

The blog will pick a word of the week, to share & explore the selected word. Here’s an expression for the word – surprise.

Disclaimer

The blog will pick a word of the week, to share & explore the selected word. Here’s an expression for the word – surprise.

It slips in softly, unannounced
A spark beneath the sky
A sudden laugh, a shifting glance
Where the beautiful birds fly.

It blooms where quiet moments live
A whispered, wide-eyed start
A tiny twist of mystery
That wakes a dreaming heart.

It dances through our memories
And leaps across our sighs
A mischievous little heartbeat
With wonder in its eyes.

We smile without a reason
And though we never speak
A warm and wordless mystery
Plays dimples on our cheeks.

It opens into wonderlands
We didn’t plan to find
Surprise is just a doorway
Built inside our mind.

It rattles every sorrow
It tosses gloom aside
And leaves our spirit glowing
With delight we cannot hide.

For life is stitched with hidden threads
Of wonders, sharp and wise
And, joy is often waiting
In the shape of a surprise!

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The blog will pick a word of the week, to share & explore the selected word. Here’s an expression for the word – surprise.

Sometimes, the most beautiful moments are the ones that we never planned. They arrive quietly, like sunlight slipping through a window or a shared smile. These gentle surprises remind us that even when life feels uncertain, something good is always finding its way to us.

In embracing the art of finding joy in the unexpected, we open our hearts to life’s precious miracles. Pleasant surprises have a way of reminding us that the universe is always conspiring in our favour. Within moments of unexpected surprises, we often discover the purest form of gratitude. It’s the unexpected that changes our lives forever.

“The best part of the journey is the surprise & the wonder along the way” – Pablo Picasso

“Life is a series of surprises. It would not be worth taking or keeping if it were not” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Expect the unexpected. Sometimes, the best things in life come from simple, unexpected moments” – Oscar Wilde

“Every moment is a fresh beginning, a surprise” – T.S. Eliot

“Surprises are the joy of life” – Socrates

“The best gifts are those that we not only didn’t expect, but didn’t even realise we wanted” – Scott Fitzgerald

“The more you praise & celebrate the surprises in your life, the more there is in life to celebrate” – Oprah Winfrey

“One of the greatest discoveries a man makes, one of his greatest surprises, is to find that he can do what he was afraid he couldn’t do” – Henry Ford

“There are so many blessings in the things that we normally take for granted. Awe, wonder & surprise are all deeply pleasurable” – Irwin Kula

“To be joyful in the universe is a brave & reckless act. The courage for joy springs not from the certainty of experience, but from surprise. Despite the world’s challenges, we give thanks for our joys & the continued courage to be happily surprised” – Molly Fumia

“Surprise is the divine’s way of saying hello. Our response is optional” – Joan Chittister

“What is the meaning of life? The little miracles, illuminations & matches struck unexpectedly in the dark” – Virginia Woolf

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The blog will pick a word of the week, to share & explore the selected word. Here’s an expression for the word – surprise.

Surprise. It can delight, disrupt or enlighten. “The moments of happiness we enjoy, usually take us by surprise” – Ashley Montagu. How we appreciate it reveals what we value or what we can create. Surprise shares that the world is not as fixed as we assume, that new possibilities can erupt at any moment. It’s a necessary condition for reflective awareness, that alternative ways of being exist beyond one’s current view of the world or oneself.

Perhaps, the safest prediction we can make about the future, is that it will surprise us. “The most beautiful thing we can experience is the surprising & the mysterious. It is the source of all true art & science” – Albert Einstein. Most of our life is lived through unconscious prediction. A surprise shows us where those assumptions break. That break is precious. The best things in life are unexpected surprises, because there were no expectations.

Surprise reveals new potential & fresh opportunities to explore, discover or create. Learning doesn’t happen when our world behaves exactly as we expected, it happens when it doesn’t. A surprise throws us into full focus for a moment. Being present in the moment brings peace & joy. It puts everything into perspective.

Surprise re-introduces freedom. It says, there are paths we may have not imagined, yet. “Mystery is at the heart of creativity. That & surprise” – Julia Cameron. Our days are like a house that we know best. Surprise is the wind that blows a window open to let in a view that we didn’t know existed. “Each day holds a surprise. When we listen, we can see, hear or feel it when it comes” – Henri Nouwen.

“Life is full of unpredictable beauty & strange surprises” – Mark Everett. “Surprise is the greatest gift which life can grant us” – Boris Pasternak. The only thing that should surprise us, is that there are still some things that can surprise us!

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The blog will pick a word of the week, to share & explore the selected word. Here’s an expression for the word – travel.

A compass points to somewhere far
But, we move by the quieter signs
A ray of light, a friendly star
The pull of unimagined lines.

No border stops a wandering heart
No gate can keep it still
It slips through dawn like coloured wind
And follows where the dreams will.

We walk through forests, cities and seas
But, always circle back
The loveliest journey ever made
Is along an unseen track.

The moon leans low to watch our step
The stars unwind their silver seams
And in the quiet, something stirs
A truth that lives in-between.

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The blog will pick a word of the week, to share & explore the selected word. Here’s an expression for the word – travel.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth.

Then took the other, as just as fair

And having perhaps the better claim

Because it was grassy and wanted wear.

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet, knowing how way leads on to way

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I

I took the one less traveled by

And that has made all the difference.

—–Robert Frost

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