Moments are a long time in the making.
Some days I choose to take the bus to and from work. Not as many days as I'd like, but last Thursday was one of them.
Thursday was a gently miserable day weatherwise. A soft intermittent sleet would get caught on the slow (but sideways and freezing) winds. Through such conditions I walked across campus toward the bus stop and when I crested the final hill, I could see all the way to Cleveland Avenue. It's about three hundred yards from the crest of the hill, across the rest of the hill, a long parking lot and the front lawn of the retirement home.
And from three hundred yards, I saw the bus drive by.
The SOUTHbound 105. Without thinking I started to run: suitcoat flapping in the wind, computer bag pulled tight against my side, workout duffel flopping against my back. See, the southbound 105 always passes my bus stop JUST BEFORE the northbound 105 (my bus) arrives.
I knew that my chances were thin. The bus would have to be running behind, I would have to be fast: really fast. And I pictured the last moments as I ran, the bus would be almost ready to pass the stop without a stop when someone in the back of the bus would see my ridiculous sprinting figure through the sleet and call out to the driver -- WAIT!
The doors would open and I would not even pause in my gait -- hurdling over the last ten yards in a giant leap, I would land inside the stairs of the bus and the bus would erupt in cheers.
That was one version of the next three minutes. But the further I got through the endless parking lot, running as fast as I could imagine running, the more I realized how absolutely unlikely my story was. I realized that *probably* the bus would pass any second. And my running would be in vain.
Another ugly possibility? I could run out of stamina. I could have to slow down and even walk. I haven't been doing a lot of 300 yard sprints (carrying a computer bag) in my training regimen. Okay, the real truth? I barely even have a training regimen.
So gradually as I get closer and closer I realize that EITHER the bus will come ANY SECOND...
...or...
...unbelievably, the Northbound passed the stop before the Southbound today.
...or...
most horrific of all, I may well lose the stamina that's allowing me to run at this breakneck speed. And, after all this effort, after those dreams of glory, I'd be walking the last fifty yards, exhausted breathing heavily and the bus would zip by, oblivious of my best efforts.
Coach-Andrew gave me a little pep talk inside of my head. Don't stop running. If you stop running, and miss the bus, you'll always regret it. Always wonder if you could have given just a little more.
Rational Andrew argues: the likelihood that the bus has already come is high at this point. And if I need to stop running, you need to stop running.
Coach Andrew: Seize the moment! If you fail, you'll always regret the moment you stopped. When that bus whizzes past you...you'll always wonder.
Rational Andrew: See, if I stop right now -- that's not a decision I'm making in this moment. That's a decision that my body and my exercise routine have been making for months and months. There are some choices that you only have the capacity to make if you've been working up to the moment.
And suddenly the race through the sleet and the parking lot and the bus stop all fell away and I realized I wasn't looking at the shadows anymore, but had glimpsed something more real.
Our lives are organized around seizing moments, but our ability to seize any given moment is so deeply rooted in our capacity to seize that it's actually not about the moment at all.
It's a freeing and challenging epiphany to have in the freezing rain. When you see how your mundane choices have been shaping you so gradually and inevitably, it makes you want to -- not seize the moment, but carefully craft the moment so that its reverberations into the future link who you are now to who you hope to be then.
Thursday was a gently miserable day weatherwise. A soft intermittent sleet would get caught on the slow (but sideways and freezing) winds. Through such conditions I walked across campus toward the bus stop and when I crested the final hill, I could see all the way to Cleveland Avenue. It's about three hundred yards from the crest of the hill, across the rest of the hill, a long parking lot and the front lawn of the retirement home.
And from three hundred yards, I saw the bus drive by.
The SOUTHbound 105. Without thinking I started to run: suitcoat flapping in the wind, computer bag pulled tight against my side, workout duffel flopping against my back. See, the southbound 105 always passes my bus stop JUST BEFORE the northbound 105 (my bus) arrives.
I knew that my chances were thin. The bus would have to be running behind, I would have to be fast: really fast. And I pictured the last moments as I ran, the bus would be almost ready to pass the stop without a stop when someone in the back of the bus would see my ridiculous sprinting figure through the sleet and call out to the driver -- WAIT!
The doors would open and I would not even pause in my gait -- hurdling over the last ten yards in a giant leap, I would land inside the stairs of the bus and the bus would erupt in cheers.
That was one version of the next three minutes. But the further I got through the endless parking lot, running as fast as I could imagine running, the more I realized how absolutely unlikely my story was. I realized that *probably* the bus would pass any second. And my running would be in vain.
Another ugly possibility? I could run out of stamina. I could have to slow down and even walk. I haven't been doing a lot of 300 yard sprints (carrying a computer bag) in my training regimen. Okay, the real truth? I barely even have a training regimen.
So gradually as I get closer and closer I realize that EITHER the bus will come ANY SECOND...
...or...
...unbelievably, the Northbound passed the stop before the Southbound today.
...or...
most horrific of all, I may well lose the stamina that's allowing me to run at this breakneck speed. And, after all this effort, after those dreams of glory, I'd be walking the last fifty yards, exhausted breathing heavily and the bus would zip by, oblivious of my best efforts.
Coach-Andrew gave me a little pep talk inside of my head. Don't stop running. If you stop running, and miss the bus, you'll always regret it. Always wonder if you could have given just a little more.
Rational Andrew argues: the likelihood that the bus has already come is high at this point. And if I need to stop running, you need to stop running.
Coach Andrew: Seize the moment! If you fail, you'll always regret the moment you stopped. When that bus whizzes past you...you'll always wonder.
Rational Andrew: See, if I stop right now -- that's not a decision I'm making in this moment. That's a decision that my body and my exercise routine have been making for months and months. There are some choices that you only have the capacity to make if you've been working up to the moment.
And suddenly the race through the sleet and the parking lot and the bus stop all fell away and I realized I wasn't looking at the shadows anymore, but had glimpsed something more real.
Our lives are organized around seizing moments, but our ability to seize any given moment is so deeply rooted in our capacity to seize that it's actually not about the moment at all.
It's a freeing and challenging epiphany to have in the freezing rain. When you see how your mundane choices have been shaping you so gradually and inevitably, it makes you want to -- not seize the moment, but carefully craft the moment so that its reverberations into the future link who you are now to who you hope to be then.
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