Life in Small Moments

In recent weeks, I've pulled back a bit from life online. I've spent little time on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram and even less time blogging. I wish I could say that I've been writing thousands of words a day as a result but the truth is that I haven't been writing much at all. I have, however, spent a lot of time thinking and trying to figure out what I want, a lot of time being quiet and noticing the small moments in life that settle in my chest and compel me to inexplicably utter the word, "yes."

When I was taking psychology at Grinnell, we worked with lab rats for a few weeks so that we could see the principles of behavioral psychology at work in the real world. It was fascinating to watch those rats running through mazes and pressing levers, attempting to get food pellets. They were twitchy and frantic and I understood the idea of the human "rat race" in a more definite and concrete way.

It took pulling back from social media for me to realize that I've been mentally frantic for a while now, pressing levers and looking for a quick hit without stopping to think about what I really want to accomplish and questioning whether what I am doing will get me there.

Recently, I've found peace in a perfect blue sky and colorful leaves in green grass and a warm latte and these moments of stillness helped me remember that, more than anything, I just want to write and tell stories and it's time to focus on doing that. I don't want to be frantic anymore.

November is NaBloPoMo when bloggers write 30 posts in 30 days and I'll be participating for the 10th year. I never plan what I'm going to write so I can't tell you what will show up here in the coming month but I promise there will be stories and some of them will likely be about those small moments in time that help me remember that there is life beyond the screen.