Have you noticed cigars widening your appreciation for other things?

[gvarsity]

Worked backwards for me. Started with food and wine and brought those appreciations to cigars and spirits. It is a skill set. Once you learn it you sort of apply it to everything at some level.

[Ashcan Bill]

Originally Posted by shilala

It's very much enhanced my pleasure and appreciation for SO many things I'd have rushed past.

By allowing cigars to teach me how to slow down, relax, and smell the roses, a whole new layer of life and the world has been opened up to me.

Originally Posted by RevSmoke

When you appreciate life, and all it has to offer, you slow down to look at all the little things. Sometimes it takes a life-altering event to make us slow down (heart attack, near fatal car accident), but sometimes wisdom and appreciation come without such things.

I think you guys both hit a key note here. It's all a matter of slowing down and taking note of the world around us.

I sped past things most of my life, focused on fighting the battles we all fight and pursuing the goals we all pursue.

I may be wrong, but I think our society today is a lot faster paced and more stressful than what our grandparents and great grandparents were used to. It seems to me that my Grandpa always had (or made) time for picnics, camping, fishing, days at the beach - things that many of us are too busy to enjoy today.

It wasn't until I grabbed an early retirement and resigned from the rat race that I started to really appreciate and enjoy what life has to offer. I can appreciate things today that I blew right past before. My blood pressure has dropped 15 points. For me, it was a matter of being fortunate enough to have had the opportunity to slow down. I wouldn't have done it on my own. I'm not smart enough.