MOMENTS OF UNKNOWN SIGNIFICANCE

I often think about all the milestones that mark a life, all the real significant moments that go by with hardly any thought at all.  
 
For instance... a 48 year old ... this very day, this very minute, may be at the exact mid-point of his or her entire life. It's like... "Wow! Ninety six years, and this is the exact middle!". And yet... it just goes by and there's no thought to it at all. We don't even know it. It's hugely significant in a "lifetime achievement" kind of way. Every one of us goes through their mid-life point in time, and not one single one of us can

​mark it or celebrate it or recognize it.  
 
And there's so many other moments like that.  
 
You go into a convenience store to buy something, and while you're there, you purchase, as an afterthought, some Lottery tickets. That night, you win $300,000,000.00. Your entire life, and the lives around you, have changed forever, and yet, while you were buying that ticket, you hardly gave it a thought. Oh, you might have daydreamed about how you'd spend the money, but you certainly never felt the actual significance of the moment, because you didn't know it WAS significant. If you knew what was about to happen when you purchased that ticket, you'd probably have broken down and cried. The future, for you and for those around you, changed forever in that one very moment. Education, jobs, personalities are changed and altered. The existence of future human beings generations down from you may come into being, or into question, because of this moment. Institutions such as temples, universities and hospitals that you may donate to will be forever changed. Diseases are that much closer to being cured because of the decisions you now have the ability to make. Decisions that may help millions of people. Because you will realize opportunities that otherwise would not have been available to you, others will not be able to take advantage of those same opportunities that otherwise would have been available to them instead. Your entire life, for you, for those around you, and for generations forward, will forever be changed in many significant, life altering ways, and at the moment of purchase, all you recognized it as, was an afterthought impulse purchase.  
 
Or what about the moment... that very second when you meet your future spouse? It could be some innocuous moment... not even recognized. You're at a bus stop and he picks up a pen you drop... or you're in a grocery store and he asks if you have any idea where the sponges are. That moment is hugely significant... and you aren't even aware of it. Your entire life will be different from then on. Nothing will ever be exactly how it would have been, good or bad. Yet you have no idea. There are possibly generations of people, future presidents, mothers, fathers, tons of laughter, years of emotions... everything that comes of that very moment in time when you accidentally drop your pen and meet your future spouse, and you have absolutely no idea it's happening. 
 
I’m not sure what this all means. Maybe nothing. It’s life. Life just goes on and this is the way it’s supposed to be. But being aware that these moments happen, I go through life a little more cognizant of what is happening around me. I notice things more than I used to. I wonder more often if "this" is one of those moments. It adds to life. Those moments could be happening all around you at any time. You never know. It doesn’t make me change my life or how I live, but it does help me to appreciate the moments more consciously. 
 

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