We live in moments of brief seconds… Slices and brief flashes of time. Untold thousands of seconds compile the entirety of our life. Yet, the result of the whole does not necessarily consider the power of the smallest moments we live. These micro-slices are a part of the whole, but they contain a lifetime of experiences within each.
Life may be well represented by your accomplishments spoken at a memorial service, but you can get lost in these brief micro slices of time, as they become a part of your whole.
Have you laughed so hard till you cried? Or passed out? Micro-moment! Have you been joyful, and in one brief instance, you experience petrifying fear when someone scares you? Micro-moment. Perhaps you’ve experienced anger in the flash of a moment and felt the residual feeling for hours, days, or even weeks. That’s the compounding effect of each sliver of time dictating our entire future!
Life is made up of micro-moments. Ups and downs. Left. Right. Forward. Backward. In and out. Joy and sadness. Fear and relief.
Some will let these moments be the definition of their entire life. Yet, I live for a lifetime. The moments may be a part of the whole, but I can deal with each slice independently. I think.
Training For The Thought
In a similar way that a specimen is sliced into paper-thin slivers to view with a microscope, we can consider how each micro-slice is simply a part of the whole.
When I was young my parents got me a biology kit for Christmas, very much like this picutre.
It included various fishes, worms, and other creatures packed in formaldehyde to dissect. The tools of the trade were all part of the kit. Scalpel. Scissors. Pins. Microscope. Blank glass slides. Dyes. Hours of fun along with moments of frustration.
I remember trying to slice things down slimmer and thinner to see the smallest piece’s makeup. It was difficult to do with a kit made for someone with uncertain hands.
It makes me think of William Blake’s poem about seeing the world in a grain of sand. [Source] This poem is over 200 years old. Oh, the imagination of a writer thinking that he can understand the whole from the source of a single grain of sand.
Think With Me
How do you learn to shave off a micro-moment and analyze it? Can you dissect the very smallest moments of your life, whittle it down to size the fears, anger, doubts, and confusion? Difficult, perhaps. Necessary to learn.
When these things are at their smallest size, you have the power to overcome them much more easily. It’s the mountain and molehill mentality. You cannot whittle down the mountain in your lifetime, but you can easily step over a molehill. I know. We do it a lot here in our “rock acres.”
When life is dealt with at its smallest size, you have the power to overcome the challenge damage much more easily. Yet, the abundance of the small can overwhelm your life. Click To TweetIt is easier to overcome the negatives of micro-moments when they are whittled down to manageable sizes… That’s learning to train yourself to accomplish more when you learn to handle less.
Here’s My Thought
If every part of life is more easily manageable by handling the smallest sliver, might that be the best way to look at challenges? Problems? If the year is as weirdly assembled as 2020, then might we need the power to find the micro-moments to see with clarity?
Yet, the hits just keep on coming…
It makes me wonder, how will history view this time period? Will we be defined by a pandemic, riots, marches, politics, fires, or even the economy? 2020 was my year to turn 65. Ride off into retirement. I may have hit a milestone, but the riding part is not about to happen.
In the cracks of the moments, we find the individual stories. Turmoil. Fear. Frailty. Death. Which lists of stories mean more to you? Celebrities? Performers? Leaders? Followers? Politicians? Family. Friends. Justices? Will it matter how they died? COVID? Cancer? Age? Tragic? Unknown?
Think about it like this. All these micro-moments can easily consume us with their weighted presence. Yet, they are simply part of the whole—the main. If no man is an island, then no single event can be ignored. Each is part of the parcel. Only, you get to deal with the micro-slices you choose.
The psalmist stressed the action of moments, but some of them may be long-drawn. Anger is a flash in the pan, just for a moment. Weeping may endure for the night, but there’s joy in the morning…
For His anger is but for a moment, His favor is for life;
Weeping may endure for a night,
But joy comes in the morning. (Psalms 30:5 NKJV)
Keep Your Perspective
Don’t let the negatives get you down. Ride “through” the stormy moments. There’s sunshine around the bend. Micro-moments tend to be very short-lived. It’s the long view that matters the most.
This is exactly what the psalmist did. He put everything into perspective.
To the Chief Musician. On the Instrument of Gath. A Psalm of David.
O LORD, our Lord, How excellent is Your name in all the earth,
Who have set Your glory above the heavens!
Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants
You have ordained strength, Because of Your enemies,
That You may silence the enemy and the avenger.
When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers,
The moon and the stars, which You have ordained,
What is man that You are mindful of him,
And the son of man that You visit him?
For You have made him a little lower than the angels,
And You have crowned him with glory and honor.
You have made him to have dominion over the works of Your hands;
You have put all things under his feet,
All sheep and oxen— Even the beasts of the field, The birds of the air,
And the fish of the sea That pass through the paths of the seas.
O LORD, our Lord, How excellent is Your name in all the earth!
(Psalms 8:1-9 NKJV)
Great prospective. Made me think a little harder about my life.