During the last long lockdown, when nothing but nothing was open, I did a lot of early-morning walks to stretch my legs. At the weekends, I would walk to the Rhine and back and I would try to vary my route each time. Doing this allowed me to make all sorts of little discoveries: residential buildings I'd never seen before, little alleyways, specialist shops and small, tucked-away parks and green areas for example.
You don't have to go out of your way to be a bit of an explorer. In our normal daily life, we tend to take the more well-trodden path. Seeing the same things every day gets boring and we become bored. However, just by going down a parallel road, for example, means you might discover a lovely display of flowers on a balcony, a cute mural on a building, discover a shop you never knew existed, or see some attractive person pass by.
It's even better if you take a camera with you; that way, you will be on the lookout for striking images.
One saying I learnt while still at school - thanks to a Collins Gem Dictionary of Quotations, was from Confucius. He said: "Everything has its beauty, but not everyone sees it."
I go around trying to see what is beautiful about things. You can train your eye to see something beautiful even in a ruined building. Life is more uplifting if you focus on what is nice.
This article in The Guardian newspaper talk about similar walks in the countryside:
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