There are small things in life that please us. How I love to stop my car near the sea and go for a walk! The immense ocean, the sound of the waves, the smell of the sea, the blowing wind help my mind fly away from the daily problems for a few minutes. I relax. I calm down. I feel a kind of energetic refreshment. After thirty minutes or an hour I feel more like myself.
 
Nowadays we are attracted to live in big cities. We are closed in offices or in  factories for long periods of time. Afterwards, we sit at the table, during our meals, or on a sofa, watching TV or reading. We sleep the rest of the time. During the weekend a lot of people visit their families or friends, watch some shows or meet in enclosed spaces which are usually polluted.
 
Physical exercise is often forgotten, especially by the men, since women usually do the household chores. Many of us are seldom in contact with nature and moments of reflection are very few.
 
During the past few years we have seen the development of sport activities, jogging, riding, etc. It is a way of compensating for our sedentary life-style. However, most of these activities are still practised in enclosed spaces or in highly polluted areas, such as streets with a lot of traffic, and this is not advisable.
 
Lately, a lot of people have also been concerned about preserving the green spaces on our planet, putting an end to or diminishing the causes of polluting, correcting nature-destroying attitudes, etc. Nevertheless, in Portugal,  we could probably do something more concrete to preserve our huge natural resources. We may be poor in other things (or at least we complain as if we were), but people who “possess” Gerês, the estuary of Aveiro, the mountains of Estrela and Caramulo, the coast of Alentejo, the beaches of the Algarve, Madeira, the Azores and many other beauties of nature, should consider themselves rich and ask the institutional powers to administrate properly this collective wealth.
 
Meanwhile, we can probably visit these enchanting places on our country more often. When we are in touch with nature, we can feel a certain happiness, synthesize with it and create conditions to live more harmoniously.
 
And in addition to these big spaces, nature is everywhere around us: municipal gardens, river banks, small woods, immense beaches. So, shouldn’t we become used to going for a walk in a quite place near our house?
 
And we can take advantage of these moments in touch with nature to think  a little... We might find the solutions to our ploblems easier... we might learn to live better...

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