MONDAY MINDSET: MOMENTS

WEEK OF 9/2/24

 

Sometimes, it’s just not your moment

In fact, unless you’ve really, really prepared for it, it probably won’t be.And even if you have done everything humanly possible to prepare, sometimes it just doesn’t pan out.

We tend to think in narratives, that our story is the main arc of a grand tale – that our seminal experiences are somehow heavy with more meaning and purpose than those of others.  And while, subjectively, maybe this is the case, the unfortunate truth is that the rest of the world doesn’t recognize your place as the main character.

Accordingly, the story arc for any given pursuit may not actually see you come through the other side with your hand raised.  You might fail, you might underperform.  You might not even show up.  

The stories of our lives read a lot less like trope-y young adult literature, and more like something George R.R. Martin would write.  The good guys regularly fail, the bad guys often get ahead, and somewhere along the line your life trajectory changes in an instant and everything up to that point is recontextualized.

We have to understand that we can’t plan our moments.  We can’t set appointments for them, reserve them, or put them down on a calendar.  They appear when they appear, often when least expected, and the windows of opportunity are slim and rapidly closing.

So it’s not so much about trying to pin down the moments – it’s about being ready for the moments.  Being prepared and bright eyed enough to see the opportunity in something that may otherwise look like a setback, or simply being physically and mentally present in the space in which the moments you’re looking for tend to happen.

That is to say, the most important moments in your life don’t happen on the couch, or when you’re scrolling mindlessly on your phone, or when you’re sidelined by whatever vice  you happened to partake too much of.

They happen in the world.  In the gym.  With friends. But, most importantly, they happen within a certain, cultivated perspective that is keen enough to spot them, and wise enough to recognize them for what they are.