The Little Things in Hand
Motivation – Inspiration – and the little things you just might miss. I believe those are the things – regarding your personal growth – that tour is all about.
Tour is a very busy life and you can miss a lot of significant things as you wiz by town after town. Only staying in most places for two nights and flying through school after school; meeting person after person can be like trying to catch an insect on a roller coaster – not too easy. So I did a bit of an experiment: I spent 5 days really noticing the little moments and looking for them and then I spent another 5 days without looking for them, making a full ten days. I kept a journal that I wrote in to mark the observations of this experiment. Here are some of my findings:
Day one – The little moments
I have always seen myself as someone who recognized the “little moments.” But now as I am really trying to notice them I have to wonder what little moments really are. Having a bus ride ahead of me I have time to think about it before the day really begins.
So, this is what I came up with. The definition of “little moments” is the things in your day to day life that can surprise you, make you in awe, and be one of the biggest moments in your day, but are little in the fact that they seem so insignificant that they can be passed. But if only they are looked at they can change your day, or world so quickly.
The little moments of my day: the way the sun shines so brightly through the clouds today, as I walked through the hallway of the school many students smiled back at me, and as I talked in front of a huge group of students one student sitting off to the side looked me straight in the eyes with a shyness that turned to confidence as I returned her glance with a smile.
Just reading these moments back to myself they seem so stupid and unimportant, but when I really think of them, close my eyes and play them back, I can’t help but smile foolishly.
Day Six– Just the big moments
Since tour isn’t what you would call a normal, common type of day big moments are not uncommon, unlike my high school and lazy summer days were a big moment was a once in a life time thing. Yet, a big moment is still something that doesn’t always happen. Today, however, one did. Yay!
The big moment of the day was that a student came up to me and talked to me about some of the difficulties he was experiencing in his life. We talked for a little while about it and I gave him as much encouragement as I could. He said that the presentation was something that he really needed in his life and “wham!” there is my big “we are changing lives!” moment.
Today I was just looking for the big moments and I started to miss things. Without trying to notice the little moments I really did start to feel “momentless”. Sure, I had that big moment today, but there are so many minutes in a day that were not filled with moments. I could barely stand it and to be honest the experiment failed because on the bus ride home from the show I started to search for those amazing little moments.
Big moments are amazing and they can shock you to the bone. But, the little moments are the important ones, because they are the ones that happen daytoday. They are the moments that fill the hours with memories and fill the minutes with smiles and fill the seconds with laughter.
When you are living in a bus with eight other people going to show day after day it can be easy to fall into this routine where you do what you gotta do and that is all. But, when I think about it there has not been one day that is the same, each day is amazing in its own way. So I look out the window and look for natures little wonders. And I look into each persons face in the sea of faces to see the moment of change in their eyes.
Victoria, LiveDifferent Academy Student, Spring 2014