I had one of those moments today. That sudden stop moving, start seeing moment of realization that life is so incredibly beautiful. One of those moments where you take a second to breathe after running running running through it all and you open your eyes and goose bumps cover your entire body and a chill runs up your spine and you can’t help but smile from ear to ear because happiness is everything you feel.
These moments are rare but they are so so special. I am so grateful to have the life, the experiences I do that have brought me to this feeling more times than one.
The funny thing is it’s never a big, momentous event that ignites this feeling to come alive. It’s always something small — today, a cup of coffee and a chocolate pastry on a wooden table sitting lopsided on a cobblestone street overlooking the harbor in old town Stockholm — that wakes up that special feeling hidden deep inside.
I think too often we go through life waiting for the big stuff. Looking at the big picture. Hoping for that dream job, that dream partner, that dream family, that dream life. All of these goals we yearn for and wish for day in and day out without allowing ourselves to find simple happiness in the small joys of everyday life because we are not precisely where we want to be so we must keep pushing forward, on into the future, those end goals being the only ones that matter.
I’ve said this before and I’ve said it again, mostly because I need to keep reminding myself of this, but who ever said life isn’t so much about those grand accomplishments but rather the tiny achievements, the tiny excitements? I believe in those small moments, ones we might often overlook as we charge on towards the picturesque vision that we have imagined to be the perfect happy ending, are where within we find that happiness we’ve been searching for all along.
Evan Petschke 