I was reminded of one my favorite movie’s About Time at a bar room lecture series on Tuesday evening*.* Similar to David Foster Wallace’s This Is Water speech, it reminded me embrace the little things in life, smell the roses, and truly live every day.
One quote from the father to his son (both of whom can time travel) smacked me in the face:
“Here’s the secret to happiness. Go about and live each day normally - the stresses, the immediate reactions, etc. The first time with all the tensions and worries that stop us from noticing how sweet the world can be. But the second time, noticing. And at the end of the day, go back in time and re-live it. But this time, deliberately take notice of the little things. Enjoy them. Enjoy the good & bad. Enjoy the beauty of the day.”
Obviously, I can’t travel back in time. But, I can live every day as if I’ve deliberately come back to this day to enjoy it. As if it is the final day of my extraordinary, ordinary life. We’re all traveling through time together. Every day of our lives passes by no matter how hard we try to slow it down.
All we can do is our best to relish in our remarkable lives.
- To look around.
- See the greatness in the big, the small, the mundane.
- Notice the beauty of strangers and their interactions.
- Watch the patterns of nature play out in front of our very eyes.
Remind ourselves that everything we see today was not there for hundreds of thousands of years. Only in this moment. Nothing we see now looked the same just a few decades before.
It’s a miracle that we get to see this view. Better yet, look at the person next to you. The odds you both end up in this very moment is so unbelievably small, it’s basically a miracle.
You want to be happy & flourish? Then relish in the little things.