There are times in my life when I have been totally surprised/taken aback and need to take time to appreciate/understand the moment. The majority of these are crazy realizations or amazing “aha!” moments and last week, I was shown a TED Talk that perfectly explains these instances and in the video, he refers to these moments as “lollipop moments.” Recently, I experienced one of the biggest “lollipop moments” of my young life and felt the need to share it with you all.
About a week and a half ago, my good friend Jacob texted me asking what my plans were for dinner, and we decided to eat at a nearby restaurant together. I hadn’t seen him in a month, so naturally, we were catching up and enjoying the food. Dinner passed quickly and we finished the night hanging out in an outside seating area where nobody else was (not because it wasn’t busy, it was fairly late at night).
Jacob and I have been friends for a little over 6 months, and at one point in our friendship we were driving to a lake and we were mistaken for a married couple. Ever since that moment our friends refer to us as “mom and dad” and occasionally, we pretend like we are married (side note - I know this seems weird and irrelevant but I PROMISE there’s a reason for all this information).
So, as we were sitting outside, we began to get into a “pretend married couple fight.” We started going back forth and truly made an effort to get in touch with the actor/actress inside of us. Unknowingly, a father who had been walking by stopped and stared at us as we fake fought. The man, not realizing it was fake, quickly intervened and kindly said, “life is too short, it’s not worth it. Just kiss and make up. See! You’re laughing!”
Now, we were obviously laughing because we couldn’t believe he actually thought we were fighting. But in that moment, I was shocked that this man had bravely told us an extremely important piece of information without thinking twice. In today’s society, more and more people face life with the attitude “let everyone do what they want, as long as they aren’t bothering me,” but this man had taken an interest in a stranger's problem and attempted to help them face reality and release the moment. I can’t even begin to understand what that moment would have meant to a couple that was actually in a fight.
I immediately felt guilty for “improve fighting” because I believed that man felt I was being petty and ungrateful for the friend I had in front of me. Quickly thereafter, I understood that my feeling at that point didn’t matter because there were much bigger things at play. This lollipop moment had made me rethink how I live my life. Maybe when I see people arguing I should give them a reality check instead of rolling my eyes at their behavior, and maybe when people get caught up in the stress of life I should remind them that their problems are never as big as they seem.
I understand the depth of life and how important it is to not get snatched in by the noise that surrounds us. It’s extremely important to love the people in our life and be conscious of everything that revolves around this world. It’s silly to get caught up in hating little things and going out of our way to creating controversy and additional problems. Be happy with what’s in front of you and appreciate people instead of things.
To wrap this up, I want to challenge you to not only step up when you see someone getting too caught up in life but to also remind yourself that your problems are never as great as they seem, and although you and your problems are important, there will always be people in front of you and behind you. So be mindful of others and how they are feeling, be mindful of the way you act in front of people you care about, second guess your problems and make sure they really are bothering you and should to be attended to. Try to put other before yourself once in awhile and see how you feel, you never know how easily you can make significant differences in others lives.
