Some simple moments - motivational and memorable

Life to me is in the simple things, the tiny things that happen daily, the everyday moments. I see life through a small window, I am glad about what I have and seek happiness in them.  These small moments sometimes help me to steel my resolve, lend a new outlook and build strength to strike out anew and motivate myself.

For instance, one of my motivational moment comes through flipping the many pages of my photo albums where many memorable moments of my children and family are stored. I consider this album that I made is paying major dividends today when my children are teenagers and my elder is now in hostel while my younger will soon move out.

The first time my daughter and son  had their first tumble, their  first step,  their first picture  holding the bottle, the first of everything in their life has been recorded and clicked with a small note. Similarly with our vacations and family functions.  And today, this album serves as an activity for us. I simply adore the family time we have  sitting on our kingsize bed and discussing the photos while we flip through the albums with many  albums scattered around us. It is a great family bonding time for us today.

Similarly, I love bonding with my extended family every vacation.  Apart from the various planned and unplanned trips, one thing was sure. Spending time at our elders place and connecting the younger generation with the older generation. The  many happy  moments  that I have spent with my parents, in-laws and extended family of uncles and aunts along with my family has become like a glue and today just recalling those lovely moments like sitting under a star spangled terrace and eating a family dinner under the moonlight or talking about trivial things and playing antakshari or dumb charades  with my uncles, aunts, parents, my husband , cousins and their kids,  recalling such simple  moments  sort of builds confidence and motivates me. Such memories are special for me and have become like a part of my family biography and I recall  them to perk me up.

While birthdays, anniversaries and holidays can be perfect opportunities for memorable moments, for me it can be in as simple as somebody patting me on my back for a simple reason. Such  moments stay in me forever.

Take this little moment that happened when I was I think in 6^th standard. I loved reading books and magazines and would participate in contests or writing articles. There was a question and answer column in “science today” magazine and  my query was published in the book. It was a very simple one liner but my Grandfather was so happy to see my name published. He flaunted the book in a wedding and told everyone of my relative. Their encouraging words and my grandpa’s ‘Pat” on my back  served as an encouragement for me to do well. I have since then written articles for magazines, some of them were published and some were rejected. But, everytime I fail in writing, that ‘pat’ motivates me. Today writing blogs is a huge outlet to my thoughts. It gives clarity on what goes in my mind and head . There are times, when I sit to write and don’t even know that all these have been inside me and there are times when I build things and write.  But that pat that day might have not have been of importance to many but for me it is so motivating and memorable that today it has outlived my Grandpa.

   I learn to notice such small memorable moments today like in the sunrise, sunset, the freshly sprouted russet mango leaves, the radish flower bobbing their pretty petals in the evening breeze, or the beautiful starling carrying the long dried stalk in its beak to make its nest, chatting with friends on my whatsapp group, the night skies, lying down on a carpet of grass in open air, a bliss of melodius music,  the smile of an unknown baby ….so many such simple things.

The simplest of things in life sometimes have the most profound influence on me. I need no earth-shattering moment or epiphany to recognize them.