The young waitress with the beautiful skin and gorgeous green eyes – she was make-up free and didn’t need it – approached the table and asked if she could bring the check. “Yes, please” I said, to which she responded “awesome”. I couldn’t let it go, and said aloud the words as they were forming in my head: “no it’s not”.
Over the past few years I have often chuckled over the trite use of the word “awesome” – so commonplace has it become that it has
lost all meaning. A quick spin through the dictionary informs me that this word has been used since the 13th century and that its synonyms are: admiration, amazement, astonishment, wonder and wonderment.
At a few dinners recently at the point in the evening when the conversation begins to drag, I asked those gathered this question:
“what do you regard as truly awesome?” The answers will not surprise you. When I read them I realized that most predate the first use of this word nearly 800 years ago and, in fact, most predate language itself, which has been around for something like 100,000 years. Here is a partial list I compiled:
• The raw beauty and power of nature
• The vastness of interstellar space
• The constancy of stars
• The Grand Canyon
• The silence in the deep forest
• The majesty of the mountains
• The oceans
• Waterfalls
• Energy
• Music
• The miracle of human birth
• Life
• True love
• The incredible diversity of life
• An innocent child absorbed in play
• A child’s infectious laughter
• A mother’s love
• Grace
• The aurora borealis
• A solar eclipse
• Renaissance cathedrals and the incredible artwork contained therein
• Medieval villages
• The pyramids
• That man has landed on the moon and returned
• That whales can “jump”
• The ingenuity of humankind
• Sunsets
We’d love to hear what thoughts you would add to this list – just post a comment to this blog on our website. And, while you consider this list, we send our finest wishes for a happy new year with the hope that you discover something that truly inspires wonder for you.