I found this on the blog I love, Clover Lane, today and just really enjoyed reading it:

"As surprising and unsettling as the twists and turns of life may be, it is even more damaging to simply take life itself for granted.
If we do that, we are fast on our way to becoming inured to the pulse of life that beats through all our days, however taxing, however difficult.

If we miss the little things, we will soon begin to take love and friendship and blessing for granted.

Perhaps even miss them entirely.
When we do not cultivate a sense of surprise,

we give in to the emotional dysfunction that suffocates the breath of life in us.
Our hearts go sour and our souls go blind.
We lack the open-armed exuberance for life that make the human."

-Joan Chittister