Appreciating Ordinary Moments

We live inside our own normal and with the busyness, repetition and hustle, and at a point it stops feeling special.

About 30 years ago, I worked on a project when I lived in Chicago, and it required travel to New York on a regular basis. Twice monthly flight, airport lounges, taking the Queensboro bridge into the city at 8 O'clock in the morning, same car service waiting on arrival taking me back into the office.

And at the time, that life seemed like it was all logistics, calendar blocks, expense reports, early alarms, stressed in traffic trying to make the flight.

But 30 years later, it's a memory reel. The descent into New York at dawn, the grid of lights in the car as we cross the bridge, the first breath of cold air stepping out of the terminal, the hum of a city that makes you feel slightly more alive, no matter what the time of day. At the time, that felt routine. Looking back, it was a chapter.

And the thing about chapters is you don’t know you’re in one because you’re too busy living it. And there's a coaching life lesson in this.

Most people are waiting for the big thing to appear. Climbing Kilimanjaro, the trip to the Maldives, the big promotion, the IPO exit, the retirement. But I find that the texture of our lives is built in repeated, ordinary experience. The commute you complain about, the travel you grumble through, the stretch assignment that might exhaust you at the time. One day they'll be stories, and those stories age beautifully.

I’m curious, what’s something in your current routine that future-you might miss?