Here’s what I came up with at 6:30am this morning while enjoying a delicious pastry (pictured) at Neighborhood Bakeshop:
The reason I say “extremely non-exhaustive” is because this is actually just a list of things that happened to me this morning. But, at the end of the day, these little things are the point of life, right? I wish I could say that those monumental moments, such as graduations or weddings, are the point, or the wonderful places to which I’ve had the opportunity to travel and explore, but (for better or worse) those aren’t the moments that make up the majority of my life. And to be honest, if I were living every day just waiting for or reminiscing about those bigger moments, I’m not sure that would be enough for me to want to live. That’s not to say I don’t often find myself in those moments – in a beautiful landscape in Austria, for example – and think to myself, “Wow, I’m so incredibly thankful to be alive to experience this moment,” but it’s hard to keep going through more “routine” days without smaller moments of happiness and relief along the way.
Or maybe the point of life is both of these things at the same time: having big, important moments of ecstasy and joy that you can carry with you always, and smaller and briefer moments of quiet fulfillment and gratitude. (Or maybe the point of life is none of the above, and I’ll come to figure it out when I’m older and wiser. Or maybe there is no point, in which case… well, I don’t want to think about that.)
Regardless, here I am, sitting outdoors at a coffee shop at 8am on a misty San Francisco morning, and feeling very grateful. I’m also feeling like I wish I were good at drawing (or any art, really) since this doodle looks like a pretty sorry depiction of the images I was trying to capture. (Maybe the point of life is to slowly improve your drawing skills until you die???)
Share your thoughts!