Highlights of: The Everyday Work of Art: Awakening the Extraordinary in Your Daily Life by Booth

1. What is Art? Highlights of: The Everyday Work of Art: Awakening the Extraordinary in Your Daily Life by Booth

2. “To engage fully in the work of art, all you really need are skills you already have.” *All people do amazing things all the time, we just have to acknowledge our natural talents and see the beauty out of our own actions.

3. “If we can acknowledge and honor the art we perform…we can dramatically enrich the quality of daily life.” *Even if you don’t think so, everybody has artistic ability. You experience art every day and engage in the actions, skills, and functions of art when you don’t even realize it.

4. “Artists create masterpieces the way we all accomplish things in life.” *Artists feel the same satisfaction as we do when we have our own accomplishments. For example, experiences like solving a problem, helping a child, loving somebody, telling a story, completing a project, and many more are each seen as a work of art and as your own accomplishments.

5. “Every action, every moment, every step is filled with the work of art.” *Every day you are experiencing art through your own choices and actions, and it is your responsibility to see and use your own personal skills to enhance the quality of your own life.

6. “If our experience of being alive is the most valuable thing, then what we pay attention to becomes a critical choice, and developing how we notice becomes the most important thing we can do.” *Life is short; we need to make the best out of everything and live in every moment seeing value. It is important in what we get out of our own experiences. Noticing is to experience and to experience is to actively respond. Our choices affect how much value we get out of life.

7. “Attentive noticing is an accomplishment in itself- especially in a culture in which we are bombarded with stimuli and options for our attention.” *Life is busy and we get caught up in this fast-paced world. We sometimes forget to notice what is important to us and to pay attention to what truly means the most to us.

8. “We need to notice our noticing and guide it into inquiries that fulfill our yearnings-things that attract, challenge, and satisfy us.” *It is truly essential to invest your attention to what means the most to you and to live moment-by-moment with a positive attitude while learning and gaining from each experience on a daily basis.