A while back I heard something that changed my thinking about many things. Questions flooded my mind. Time took on a different meaning.
The words which caused this shift were these: epiphanies don’t just cause you to catch your breath in an “Ah-ha” moment. They knock the breath from your lungs and then breathe new life back into you.
All sorts of ideas, images, and conclusions rushed to fill a void unrecognized until then.
Earth Sunrise and Milky Way Illustration. First Sun Lights. Space Illustrations Collection.
Think about that statement. Each of us has an “Ah-ha” take possession of us at unexpected times, But they persist in their surprise element. Perhaps it’s their infrequent appearance in our lives that catches us unawares and causes the catch in our throat in amazement.
Perhaps it’s our surprise that something so simple, so obvious (which tends to be an element of every “Ah-ha”) could have eluded us in the first place. The amazement comes with a gift card attached that says something like “if you’d paid attention, you’d have seen this a long time ago.”
Each time one of these sneaky epiphanies drops down before my eyes, I have that reaction. How could I not have seen this obvious truth? And when the answer comes, it carries its own simple message.
The truth is, we’re all so caught up in the minutiae of daily living that we simply don’t pay attention to the truth around us. When your bucket is filled with sand at the beach, it’s hard to see the tiny periwinkle shell in the middle.
For all that each of us has learned, stored behind mental doors and within file cabinets, we access little of that knowledge or understanding. It isn’t until a quirky trigger effect releases the accumulated correlations stored that we get that moment of revelation. It was there all along, but layered in psychic dust bunnies.
Girl Taking A Nap On Her Notebook Computer As Exhausted
And when the dust is shaken off, and we’ve had our “ah-ha,” we begin to live differently than before. Oh, sure, we can silently choose to forget the knowledge again. We can go back to sleep. But that would mean wasting the gift we’ve given ourselves.
I choose to take the gift and use it to its fullest. Its size isn’t important. Only its effect has power. And isn’t that what each of us wants—just a little bit? A tiny impulse of power, even if its power over ourselves, our lives, our knowledge.
digital rendering of an eye
This is my challenge to you. Each time you receive a small “ah-ha,” spend time studying it and what it could really mean to you. Turn it over in your mind to see how it applies to you and your situation. But most of all, don’t allow yourself to go back to sleep and forget to breathe in the new life awaiting you. At least consider breathing deep and smiling at your genius.
Until next time, a bientot,
Claudsy
