Our lives are full of quiet insignificance.
Moments, that we just don’t take much time to notice. Flashes that seem to come and go, so effortlessly, so easily, and so quickly.
Quiet moments. Sometimes, loud moments. Chaotic moments. Insignificant moments.
We would be lost without them.
We would defile our humanity without them.
We would be lost.
Without those millions and millions of tiny, teeny, little moments of quiet insignificance.
Perhaps it’s the solitude of reading a good book or an uplifting movement of a good piece of music. Perhaps it’s the company of a good friend, or the exaggerated chatter about nothing in particular. Perhaps it’s a good hearty run. A daily walk. A piece of cheesecake. Or simply doing the laundry.
We are so driven and so blindly distracted, by all the seemingly important things we have to do each day, that we ignore and forget what makes life worth living.
The quiet insignificance of each moment.
If you want to, you can keep yourself distracted by the infinite minutia of your daily chores for what seems like an infinite pocket of time. If you care to, you can become a stubborn dog, chasing its own tail.
And you do.
You look for meaning and happiness in the grand, and rare, if not magnificent moments. In very huge, loud, champagne popping, heart racing, monumental, moments.
Moments which come bearing expensive invitation cards. Moments consumed with confetti. Moments on the red carpet, with blindingly flashing lights.
Yet the meaning of your life, hides itself in the simplicity of the daily breaths we take. Moment by moment. In the very ordinary expansion and collapse of each of your lungs, without which, there simply would be no moments at all, grand or otherwise.
Our problem is that we think we are in control.
We have come to believe in the illusion that we own or govern our own bodies. That we are the sole proprietors of our life. Creators of our own destiny. That we can live our lives on our own terms, and on our own time.
But as John Donne poetically exclaimed; no man, is an island. Entire of itself. Every woman is a piece of the continent. A part of the main.
A significant part of the main.
We are not in control. We are not an island. Not the way we believe ourselves to be.
Our stitched lives are interwoven with tiny little pieces of quiet insignificance.
Moments of hidden gratitude.
Built on very ordinary, and forgetful, moment of human friendship. Especially, when they are quiet and insignificant.
So, if you dream at night, don’t forget that others are awake, longing for a chance to dream.
And if you don’t dream but experience nightmares, realize that others are unlucky enough to live out real ones.
We were taught at school and in our homes, to look and yearn for the big things. The things that would get us noticed. The things that pay well. The things that make us smart, give us recognition, wealth, power, and prosperity.
The things that don’t really matter.
What matters are the quiet moments of insignificance.
They matter, because when we are gone, those will become the moments our loved ones will long for, and pray to God, that had more time for.
Don’t get too restless with living.
Learn to breathe.
To be still.
Learn to be quiet.
And learn to grow in insignificance.
