Why does the sky throw golden light onto the kitchen counter? Why do plums ripen and burst on the tree? Why do the mountains stand tall in all their silent attention? The world asks you, through every moment, to notice its powerful beauty. There is a hidden world in front of you at this very moment. It’s a fragile state, easily broken. With distraction, it vanishes. With attention, it returns. Your world never leaves you–you only leave it.

My birthday was a few days ago. I awoke excited to perform my yearly rituals: I ate a bowl of Cap’n Crunch, scratched off two Scratch-Its, and sent a slew of congratulatory messages to friends who share my birthday. While sugary cereal and lottery tickets could have been the highlight of my day, my walking meditation stands out to me.

After buying a caramel latte, I took a walk in my neighborhood. I noticed the greenery of the tree-lined streets and chaotic gardens as traffic intensified.

I began taking slow, intentional steps. Immediately, my world came into focus, electrified by my gaze. I found peace in the present moment with a single action. With every step, the sidewalk rushed to greet me. With every step, the world blossomed.

I fell into the present moment, deeply and fully. My entire world was reduced to one task. Walking was a joy. It was the universe distilled into perfectly packaged moments which overwhelmed me with gratitude when taken in total. This isn’t a rigid, inaccessible activity reserved for Buddhist monks. You can have this feeling today.

With each step on the worn concrete, I carved a path through oxygen and exhaust. As I walked, I knew no matter what my birthday brought, it’d be okay. I’d be content to do nothing but watch the stoplights blink. Conversely, nothing could top the present. I walked to soak up every detail of what I was doing. I was reborn into every moment as hulking garbage trucks chugged by, hissing. There I was, taking steps, paying attention to every bone in my foot, every micro-adjustment my body was making, every movement that made me deeply grateful to be in this world at all.

I surrendered to the tenderness. The world didn’t need to conform to my birthday–I just needed to realize it was there. The gentleness with which walking mindfully can change your entire outlook on the day is astonishing. Walking was ecstatic.

Along the avenue, I spotted a penny on the ground. I leaned down, picked it up, and placed it in my pocket. It’s a perfect example of what meditation does: it brings the world closer to you, and in doing so, you notice more of the world up close. Among chaos, there is a tool you can use to notice pennies on the ground, cats sleeping on sun-soaked sills, clouds drifting over a landscape. Meditation reveals what’s unnoticed.

The world needs your attention. The world is already here, waiting for you to discover each element of it. When you realize there is excitement in every moment, vacations strike you as strange. The world is here, now, forever. In understanding that, you understand you the world is something to be seen. You walk in this world wishing with all your heart to be heard, loved, and valued as you are, but never think to give your environment the same treatment.

The entire world is waiting for you to do something extraordinary: notice what you already have. I can get intoxicated by travel: bahn mi in Bangkok, khachepuri in Tbilisi, tea in Tokyo. But when I gaze into the clouds–really stare into the mist and lose myself in its majesty–I travel to the furthest place I could ever hope to go. The world then rewards me with a return ticket back to the present moment. Time and time again, I realize that I don’t have to travel to experience the world as fresh and new. I can go where I’ve never been before by looking closely at where I already am.

When I do this, I realize an even greater truth that makes me feel like a plum ready to burst: I have this feeling for life. The travel, the adventure, the excitement, the wonder–it never has to end. It’s all here, and will always be here, waiting patiently. Each time you return attention to where you are, the world unleashes a cosmic smile that races across deep space. It’s so big that you miss it entirely. We are so small that movement disappears into stillness.

Peace is possible every single moment of the day. When we look, we see. When we see, we look. It’s a virtuous cycle–and the universe loves those. Attention lets us see the world as it is, here in its naked beauty. It guides us like nothing else can.

There isn’t anything else anyway.