Take a Moment to Read this.
A moment; a fleeting period of time.
My Dad always says to me, “what a great moment that was” or “enjoy the moment, son” and I usually just grin and shake my head at him. But slowly I’m starting to come around to the idea of how right he is (shh, don’t tell him).
We tend to look at our lives in terms of years. I’ve been alive for x amount of years and have roughly x amount more until I die. Everything just gets blurred together as it leads into another year, then another… But within those years, so many great things probably happened that were simply brushed over or forgotten about.
I think this is due to a few reasons:
- Being products of North American society, we just have a REALLY hard time slowing down; of actually being IN the moment and not thinking about something else we should be doing. So we don’t fully appreciate or take in these moments until poof, they’re gone forever.
- As humans, I think we tend to sway toward the negative. I’m not sure whether this is a built in or a learned trait, but so often we seem to focus more on the bad things that happen and then skim over the good. Case in point: 2016. I mean it’s gotta be said, 2016 was a pretty shitty year overall and to be honest, even I’m having a hard time thinking of many redeeming moments for it, but! There were definitely some amazing moments that have just been forgotten about. Which basically brings me to my last reason…
- Our memory kinda suck sometimes. Aside from a handful of gifted people, there’s no way we can remember everything that happens to us (which I think is probably for the best). But because of this, we forget a huge chunk of our lives, leaving only the memories we were able to grasp at and hold onto…
And unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on what we remember), it’s all of these little moments, stacked in front of each other that make up a lifetime and, consequently, the story we tell ourselves, which can either be good or bad.
I always come back to this quote by Kurt Vonnegut, who said:
I think this is some of the best life advice. To actually notice when you’re happy because I think we so often take those moments for granted.
A couple years ago, a good friend of mine told me about the idea of writing down all of the great moments that happened to her throughout the year, and putting them in a box that she would read just before the new year.
What a great way to start the year! Instead of dwelling on the bad stuff that happened and desperately wanting the year to end, you focus on all of the good things that made you happy and how excited you are for another great year. I think sometimes we just need to remind ourselves of how awesome life actually is.
So that, my friends, is exactly what I challenge you to do with me this year.
Let’s make a point to focus on happiness in 2017 because after a year like 2016, god knows we fucking need it. Cheers!
