Small things

I've lived a lot of life; not necessarily in years although at fifty one I'm getting to that point. I've done a lot of things is what I really mean: Some good, amazingly brilliant and the complete opposite. I call the latter bad things usually, and I've done my share for various reasons. I've lived through many actions and events, attitudes and thoughts, many small moments and each one adds itself the bigger picture that will eventually be called the sum and total of my life when I look back on it, or someone else does when I'm gone.

Moments

Moments form our lives, a whole collection of them strung together in a line, although when I think of it I suppose they're more intertwined and overlapped than linear; an intertwining of events, activities, thoughts, attitudes, actions and reactions. Either way it's these moments that encompass our lives.

I've had some rather huge moments; great successes, more triumph's really, and some of the lowest of lows as well. These large events come and go depending on circumstances and situations but in-between are more typical moments, the mundane and every-day life we all experience.

I'm not one to leap from big thing to big thing, it's more of a journey for me; I understand that something needs to happen before something else can happen, the small building to the large. I don't sit and wait for momentous things to occur; I make them happen though many smaller moments that move me closer to the bigger ones. Sure, I have the goal in mind, think about it, but thinking isn't doing and and only in doing will that eventual goal become a reality. Along the way I enjoy the moments as best I can because not doing so seems wasteful of them, and of time - My life.

I evaluate my working day every three hours - it takes only a minute or two - and determine it's effectiveness. It gives me the ability to adjust should the day be unproductive rather than getting to the end of the day then evaluating which doesn't give me the ability to adjust how the day unfolds. It makes sense to me.

Ok, that last three hours was seven out of ten, what would make it eight out of ten? That's the sort of thing I ask myself. I strategize a path forward and deploy with renewed vigour and focus. The idea is to move closer to that ten out of ten day.

I don't have that structure for my real life, that is my life outside my job, but I'm always seeking to find value in the moments of my life whether that's sitting on the couch or doing some amazing activity or other - Is this moment value-adding my life I ask myself.

Small things

There's many moments in life I can look back on and feel good about, those triumph's I have experienced. There's many bad moments also, ones that often keep me up at night. But the bulk of my life has been made up of small, seemingly insignificant, moments much like the one in which I'm writing this text; A café, coffee, background music and a few minutes to reflect. A nice moment of life, a small moment.

All triumph's and success we achieve in life happens over time and through moving much smaller moments forward little by little. Take Sir Edmund Hillary for instance, the first man to climb Mt Everest in 1953. He didn't wake up that morning and say, I'm climbing Everest after breakfast y'all. His feat of physical and emotional endurance was simply the culmination of many small moments. It's the same with our lives.

What makes up an amazing life? That's a questions unique to all of us as individuals and can really only be answered in hindsight. No matter what it looks like to a person though an amazing life is simply the result of many small things coming together. A good year is simply 365 ten out of ten days in a row. Sure, we'll never hit ten out of ten as perfection isn't attainable but moving our small moments towards it will bring better ones and when enough combine the small moments become big ones.

No matter what life has in store for us or what we create for ourselves, I feel it is very important to enjoy the small things and to live it with passion. These days it's very easy to put emphasis on material things, to [seemingly] find value in them, but in truth there's more value in the small moments of our lives than in the latest new phone technology, handbag or pair of shoes. It's the small, often simple, moments that form the foundation of an amazing life. We don't need to wait until our lives are threatened before we start living them better either, a health scare for instance. We can start now, with the small things. Small moments.

I wish you many enjoyable small moments this weekend; may they combine to leave you with a great weekend. Drop a comment please, I'd love to hear from you.