As adults, we often lose our sense of wonder – meet the woman determined to help us get it back
When was the last time you looked at something or felt something and said, “wow”? If you are at a certain stage of life, with bills, children, work commitments, elderly parents and a never-ending to-do list, the chances are that word hasn’t been part of your vocabulary for some time. But one woman, 44-year- old Lucy Stone, a former BBC journalist and the author of Find Your Wow, is on a mission to change that.
Stone’s new book is about how to rediscover that sense of wonder and joy that we so often struggle to find as adults. The book looks at how we are currently living in a “wow-less” world where we are permanently distracted and overwhelmed. It looks at how we can cultivate the right conditions to find some joy in the everyday (good “wow” hunting).
The turning point for Stone, who grew up in Somerset and studied law before joining the BBC, came in November 2015 in Paris. Having booked into a teacher training course for children’s yoga, she had a Sliding Doors moment during the terror attacks.
“After the first day on the Friday (the 13th), a group of us went for dinner. We almost turned left towards the Bataclan Theatre, but just then we stumbled across a place that could take all of us. Afterwards, as I was on my way back to the hotel, my phone started to light up with messages, ‘Are you OK?'” she says. “Soon the streets were filled with sirens. I got to my room and saw on the news there had been an awful attack at the theatre. If I had taken another route, life could have turned out very different.”