Poetry has been to me its own exceeding great reward; it has given me the habit of wishing to discover the good and beautiful in all that meets and surrounds me.

Some practices pay you in a changed way of seeing rather than in anything they produce. Time spent looking closely at language, or music, or anything made with care, trains the habit of expecting something worth noticing in ordinary surroundings. The work itself may go nowhere and the habit stays with you.

Keep one such practice with no purpose attached to it: reading, drawing, playing something badly, walking the same route attentively. Do not let it acquire a goal or a measure. Its usefulness is entirely in what it does to your attention for the rest of the day.