What Makes Life Worth Living: Create Tiny Epic Moments

“One day your life will flash before your eyes. Make sure it’s worth watching.” ~Unknown

What do you think you’ll see as you lie dying?

Upon first reading this quote, I thought “Unknown” was talking about living life large. Filling days with great achievements and big moments. Going for it. Having no regrets.

I lived much of my life to create those major moments.

And maybe that is what “Unknown” was talking about.

But it’s no longer what I’m talking about when I think about the worth of my life.

High school English teacher Monique Cassidy wrote about a short story she had her students read called “Bullet in the Brain” by Tobias Wolff. In it, a man was shot in the head and dying.

I don’t want to ruin the story for you, but this man’s last thoughts were not the biggies.

His last thoughts were the small, visceral moments. In particular, playing baseball in a field when he was a child.

Cassidy asked her students to write about the significant moments in their lives. One student, who has traveled to Paris, did not write about climbing the Eiffel Tour. She wrote about trading bread with a friend at breakfast that morning in the hotel, swapping her croissant for a baguette.

Last week, my coach asked me what I’d done so far that morning. Actually she wanted me to write a poem about it to spur creativity.

“I don’t want to write about it,” I said. “I haven’t done anything worth writing about.”

My list of activities so far included folding laundry, making breakfast, and returning books to the library.

“Good,” she said. :”Write about that. That is life.”

We all have a few unforgettable moments in life. The big ones. When your mate dropped to one knee. Scoring the winning goal. You can probably short-list yours.

But today, I want to celebrate the unheralded yumminess of the teeny-tiny moments that make up your life. Because my coach was right. Those are the moments that cumulatively create a life well-lived.

While I can’t begin to guess what will run through my mind when I die, I hope it is a moment like this:

When my daughter was maybe two or three, we were visiting my in-laws on Lake Michigan, staying in a lakefront A-Frame cabin they call the chalet.

We came in from the beach one hot afternoon and my daughter and I went upstairs, turned on the window air conditioner, and fell asleep on the cool white sheets to the hum of the A/C.

While we napped, we must have turned to face one another and a couple of hours later we opened our eyes simultaneously.

In that moment, in the cool room on a hot day, I looked into her gigantic chocolate eyes and felt I could see into her soul, so trusting, so loving. I really saw her. And I felt seen and loved.

We’ve had many big moments in our family. Traveling to China to pick up my daughter. Paris for my 40th birthday. Buying our dream house on my daughter’s first day of first grade.

But I hope it will be the teeny tiny moments like napping with my daughter that will flash before my eyes. For in that moment, there was nothing but love.

When it comes to the end, isn’t that all there is?

I invite you to reflect back about those teeny tiny significant moments that have made up your life.

To try to jog your memory, think about when you have felt trusting or content or seen, really seen. What was happening in that moment? Who was present? Try to engage all your senses. What did you see? Hear? Feel?

How could you create more of those moments? Start by being present. Really see people. Look into their eyes and see them. Recognize love is all around.

Celebrate those moments.

Because while climbing to the top of the Eiffel Tour is epic, trading bread with a friend is loving.

While vacationing on the lake is fun, looking into my daughter’s deep brown eyes and seeing her soul makes life worthwhile.

Thank you for the reminder, “Unknown.”

Photo by Edward Lim