It’s sort of a cliché to talk of our life being made up of moments.
There are tons of quotes out there about it. Such as this one:
“Be happy for this moment. This moment is your life.” — Omar Khayyam
Or this one:
“Life is a succession of moments; to live each one is to succeed.” — Corita Kent
Or this one:
“I’ve always believed in savoring the moments. In the end, they are the only thing we’ll have.” — Anna Godbersen
Because it’s such a cliché, though, it’s easy to skip over how profound and true this idea is.
Our experiences all take place in the Now. And that Now is astonishingly brief. (Scientific research has revealed that what we perceive as “now” actually lasts on average for about 2-3 seconds.)
Everything outside of the Now is just in our heads. It’s either about looking back (remembering, replaying) or looking forward (anticipating, planning, fantasizing, worrying).
The choices we make, though, the experiences we have, the life we live — it all happens in the Now.
And the quality of that Now can vary considerably. Even our sense of how fast or slow it moves can change from one situation to another.
And some moments, of course, are much more memorable than others. The best ones serve as anchors that slow down our perception of the passage of time and add texture, meaning, and beauty to our lives.
What’s liberating to realize, though, is that we have more control over all this than we might realize.
The choices we make about what we focus on shape our perceptions of each moment. Are we paying attention? Are we using our senses to be mindfully present? Are we dwelling on problems or looking through a lens of appreciation and wonder?
Beyond what we do with our attention, though, there are also our choices about what actions we take. And those too can shape — or even create — the moments that make up our lives.
In their book, The Power of Moments, Chip & Dan Heath describe four basic ingredients of the special moments in our lives (elevation, insight, pride, and connection). This month, I invite us to learn from them — and from our own lives as we look back on the past year — to discover clues to how we can create more of those special, meaningful moments in our lives in 2022.