Great Big Things are what seem to constitute a fulfilled life. Relationships, family, careers, vacations, moves, home ownership, hobbies… High points others may skim from our obituaries someday. But these Great Big Things are often vague and imprecise summaries of what truly matters to us.
Focusing too broadly on the Great Big Things can lead us to squander moments, hours, days, even years as we drift. Drift through major life experiences passively, waiting for them to accumulate into something significant. Letting moments happen instead of trying to happen within them.
Great Big Things aren’t solid stretches of life we get to replay.
In reality, life is a constellation of fleeting moments we get to remember. So the way to experience Great Big Things is to capture the little things happening along the way. To zoom in rather than out.
Be intensely present, if only for a few minutes a day. Absorb a few small moments — that’s where the marrow of life is. It’s all we get.
And no matter where you’re at in life, you’re probably in the midst of a Great Big Thing. Try to help the meaningful moments stick, and surrender to the fact that most will fade.
“An apple appeared from a deep pocket in her smock. ‘Happen to have a spare Granny Smith here, to tack body to soul while we wait.'”
~David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest (Book)
She had always felt that the essence of human experience lay not primarily in the peak experiences, the wedding days and triumphs which stood out in the memory like dates circled in red on old calendars, but, rather, in the unself-conscious flow of little things—the weekend afternoon with each member of the family engaged in his or her own pursuit, their crossings and connections casual, dialogues imminently forgettable, but the sum of such hours creating a synergy which was important and eternal.
~Hyperion, Dan Simmons (Book)