Pay attention to the beauty surrounding you.

The line urges a deliberate shift of attention away from anxiety, self-criticism, and the churn of daily obligations toward immediate, sensory presence. In Lamott’s typical spiritual-psychological register, “pay attention” is less about aesthetic taste than about a practice: noticing what is already given—light, weather, ordinary kindness, small pleasures—as a way to steady the mind and re-enter gratitude. The “beauty surrounding you” can be read broadly, including nature and art but also the imperfect, lived-in beauty of ordinary life. The quote’s significance lies in its implied ethic of attention: what we repeatedly notice becomes what we experience as real.