The Days That Change Us Without Telling Us They Did
Introduction
Biggest changes in life will occur on a day when you least expect them, usually without the need for a warning sign or epic drama (The quiet changes to our lives). They come along during your daily, everyday activities (those boring but oh-so-important routines) and at the end of the day may alter who you are as a person. These moments may not be recognised until much later and yet they are often pivotal events in shaping our character, as I noted before. If you’re fortunate enough, you will receive signs about when to expect these changes, but they usually arrive without notice and leave clues as to their meaning later on in life.
The Talk That Wasn’t Important But Made A Huge Change
When you’re having a casual conversation with someone, it feels like just another routine chat – talking to a friend, passing conversation, or even a little comment from somebody you hardly know. But later on, when you’re having alone time, you remember something that they said or showed you. Sometimes it provoked thought, sometimes it helped you feel better and sometimes it helps with viewing things in a different way. Even though the actual conversation isn’t perceived as having an immense impact, it does have a small impact that leads you to see things differently. And after a period of time we begin to notice how a simple conversation has been the catalyst for major changes within ourselves.
The Decisions We Made Quickly but Lived With Slowly
Life consists of many fast decision points that, at the moment we make the decision do not appear to be significant — these can include agreeing to assist a person, saying yes to a chance to do something, not arguing with someone, changing directions while walking, or stopping a conversation before it concludes. All of these types of decisions seem trivial because they are often made within seconds; however, their effects develop slowly over time. They may provide opportunities to create connections with new people, have new and unique experiences, or obtain favorably unexpected insights. Sometimes these kinds of choices can also provide us with lessons relating to patience, bravery, or identifying boundaries — and sometimes these types of choices can disclose a person’s core values before they know it. We generally regard our most significant life decisions as having the greatest influence on our lives; although, it is this type of quiet spontaneous decision-making that creates large footprints over time. Eventually we discover that had we made the opposite choice(s), we likely would have experienced our lives dramatically differently.
The Ordinary Days When We Realized We Weren’t the Same Anymore
As human beings we will have ordinary everyday experiences, with similar ideas and emotions to a certain point. However, there will be times when events or circumstances arise that change those ideas. An example of this would be a memory that was painful has now become weightless and you feel, in a sense, as if you can hold it in your hand without any weight. Another example would be doing something that once terrified you is no longer a frightening experience. The things we hold on to, as we grow through life, are not always readily apparent. We often do not recognize when we have changed, healed, transformed until we look back on an event from our past and realize that we have become a totally different person all together.
Finding Clarity in the Quietness of Life through “Silence”
Often we experience pauses in our life not as planned events, but as times when our surroundings are absent of sound. This could be due to a day without an appointment, an empty space of time between appointments, or just the end of the day when we have the opportunity to relax. There are times during these rare occurrences that we begin to reflect on the thoughts and emotions that we have been trying to avoid for some time. We also begin to realize the extent to which the background noise of life has been hiding a deep-seated desire, unexpressed feeling, or truth that we have been hesitant to accept. While most of these moments are not seen as significant, they often result in us receiving the clarity that we were unaware we needed, and they aid us in determining what we are truly interested in, what we would like to remove from our lives, and what we aspire to achieve. By slowing down even for brief moments, we can finally hear the words that our heart has been trying to communicate to us since the beginning of our existence.
Conclusion
There are some days that change our lives the most, even though they might seem ordinary. These are the days when small things happen, which we remember later; as we remember these things occurring we see how they began to cause us to change course, to open up, or to develop something new within ourselves. Growth doesn’t always shout about itself – sometimes it quietly creeps into our lives and causes us to grow beautifully even in the least likely of places.
