Good day, team,
This week’s challenge highlights a truism about our lives. In the grand scheme of things, we are here for a brief moment in time. Our lives often seem like a long adventure, but compared to the age of our sun, or the amount of time the young redwood trees in my local park have been growing, a human life is not very long at all.
This became even more apparent last Friday evening when my husband and I attended the wake of the brother of one of his colleagues. The man who passed away—affectionately nicknamed “Rabbit” at an early age by his siblings—was not very old, but he had led a full and unusual life. Some said he lived so much life in such a short one that his passing didn’t seem altogether strange. But in looking around at the eclectic crowd of friends, family and acquaintances who collected last Friday to pay homage to Rabbit, I realized that we were all touched by his death because it reminded each of us of our mortality and that we too shall travel his path sometime in the future.
When I awoke Saturday morning, I pondered this idea of our mortality. I felt a deep appreciation for being able to get out of bed, brush my teeth, walk downstairs, receive a kind “Good morning” from my loving husband, feel the swipe of the cat’s tail on my ankle, enjoy the pleasure of that first sip of coffee. Such small things, but so lovely.
Later in the morning, our grandsons came to stay with us for the weekend. Upon seeing me, their eyes lit up, and I was greeted with the familiar “Hi, Nana!” and hugs. Again, small moments, but for anyone who has had this experience with children, there is nothing finer and more life-affirming.
Someone said about Rabbit, “He had a kindness about him and a rare ability to be so present to anyone he met; he made people feel like he truly understood them and that they were special.” He exchanged those small moments of love and consideration with anyone he connected with.
Your challenge this week is to make the most of your small moments. There is nothing more satisfying than surfacing to whatever is actually in front of you and allowing yourself to be fully aware of it. Let yourself be in whatever is happening, and revel in those small miracles that occur every moment of every day all around and within us.
At the end of our days, perhaps we can look back over the span of a lifetime and see that we allowed ourselves to be alive in all our small moments. Whether it’s the feel of the chair underneath you as you sit at your desk at work or the breeze as it softly brushes over your forehead when you walk outside, these little occurrences are what a life is made up of. Try appreciating them in whatever form they take.
As Michel de Montaigne said, “Life does not occur in large events, but in many small ones that enrich the lives we live.”
Have a good week!
Kathleen
Kathleen Doyle-White
Pathfinders Coaching
(503) 296-9249
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