A small moment with a big impact.

Isn’t it funny how it’s the little things that always serve to remind us what matters most in our lives. I suppose that’s because the little things are always more subtle than big events in our lives, which have a tendency to overwhelm us and make us more disoriented at the time, rather than impart some wisdom. That tends to come later, after we’ve had time to digest the whole, and absorb the true meaning behind the events that we were caught up in. Very small moments, I’ve seen once again, can have as profound effect on us as anything large and overwhelming, we need only to keep our mind in the present to be sure that we don’t miss them.

I had one such moment this afternoon, well more like early evening, it was around 6.00pm and I was finishing up some work and most everybody else was leaving the office to start their personal lives again. One of the eastern european guys can by my area, sat down at the desk opposite me, and started some small chitchat. He told me that he was off to Luxembourg this weekend with his girlfriend because they were going celebrate being five years together. I told him how I was envious because I found Luxembourg to be a beautiful city, and I wasn’t doing anything quite so exotic. I asked him if his relationship was five years in a row, or was there some time off in the middle with breaks or split-ups. He answered that it was five years straight through, no time off. I found that pretty admirable, I’ve been five years with a woman as my longest relationship, but then there was 2 years apart throughout that period, which doesn’t really make it a proper five years. And then he said to me, you know, the biggest problem with going out with one person is that you’ll never get to have sex with someone else, all because of your conscience. Even though he’d like to, he said he couldn’t be with another woman because his fucking conscience would kick his ass, and that’s why he hated it. I thought about it, and chuckled, and had to agree with him. Conscience is a funny thing, because it’s totally a product of our environment, not anything else.

It was then that I started on a bit of a monologue, saying that most people only get to live in a very small environment because they never go beyond their own culture or place of upbringing, which means that their world view is very limited. That’s one of the intangible benefits of travelling, I continued, when you take yourself out of your own culture, your own home, away from your family and friends, you open yourself up to possibilities and experiences that you could never hope to have otherwise. In turn this broadens your world view and causes you to challenge everything that you know or think you know, and you become a better person for it. In the end, the only thing we take with us when it’s our turn to move to the next existence is the sum of our experiences. All our material possessions and money stay here, so the only thing of any true value is the experiences which we live.

As I finished my little rant, he sat there and didn’t say anything in reply, he simply was looking a little off to the side, and nodding his head. In the brief moment of silence between us, my own words resonated a chord within me, and I remembered what it was that made me want to leave my home and friends and family, and come to a place far far away, where everything was different, and every day would hold something new. This year in August will see me being a full 10 years away from home. It’s a long time, and over the last six months I have been questioning what I was doing here, because I had become very disoriented with the way my life had been going. But I see now that I wanted to be here doing this because every day is a new experience; an experience that I could never have had back home. I realise that I have grown a lot as a person, and that I am more than I could ever have been had I never had made the journey.

For the first time in a long time, I felt comforted, because I knew why I was here, and not somewhere else. It’s a nice feeling not to feel lost.

Padwanna!

The A small moment with a big impact. by Mentalechoes, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.