Do Insignificant And Small Moments Really Matter For A Better Life?

A long time ago, when I was living with roommates during my MBA at London Business School, I decided to run around Regent’s Park. My roommate had told me to check with her the previous night, so I went into her room to check, and she was still sleeping.

Me: Hey, you want to go for a run?

Roommate: What’s the time?

Me: 9:10 AM

Roommate: Is it nine or is it 10? Don’t confuse me in the morning!

EXAMPLE 2

My family and I are on WhatsApp often, and recently I had an exchange with my brother.  

Me: Any chance, a nice indian boy is available?

Me: It just released, ok

My Brother: ???

(After a few minutes, I checked to see why there were question marks.)

Me: A Nice Indian Boy is a movie that has just been released, ok?

Me: I can see how that came across, LOL

My brother was wondering if I had succumbed to the genetic desire to matchmake - no indian child from my generation can escape unscathed from the arranged marriage experience.

EXAMPLE 3

Now that summer is here, birds are looking for nests. A few years ago, a bird family made a nest in our vent for the bathroom from the outside wall. Since then, they have shown up looking to re-enter their house every year. So, one day I stumbled into the bathroom to see my husband standing on the bathtub, poking his head out of the window sill - shaking his fists and saying, ‘Go Away!’

Imagine if you were a passerby and saw this scene—you would hurry up and wonder why a grown man was shaking his fists at the sky.

If you were the bird family, you would move to a nearby tree and watch the show, only to return the next day. Maybe they do this to entertain their kids—who knows? I can see the mommy bird telling their kids - How about we see humans try to shoo us away, you always feel better after that.

I am sharing the above real-life examples to remind myself that we ignore so many moments in our lives because we are worried about one or two big things. And most of the time, we cannot do anything about them anyway. There are so many things that are happening, but we don’t live them fully because they are not important. Maybe that’s why we need to pay attention to them - because in life, the number of unimportant things is much more than the important things. However, we tend to focus on the so-called important things so much that we miss out on a significant portion of life.

This is not to say that we should not prepare for significant events, but not at the expense of everything else. We should not diminish them just because we think they are not attention-worthy. Those moments might be a source of laughter or joy. And if we pay attention to them, the other moments in our lives might become more bearable and normal. We have been conditioned to focus on what could go wrong or firefighting, and sometimes we forget that focusing on things that are going right or fire prevention is also worth it.

We all need reminders as life gets to us at one time or another. Are there moments in your life that were tiny and unexpected but a serious treasure trove of joy and laughter?