... Sigh

The average moth has a life span on the order of a week. 7 days. 168 hours. It really amounts to little more than the blink of an eye. Here one moment, dust the next. Yet recently I came home to notice a moth on the window pane next to my front door. Over the course of the next several days I came home to find it in exactly the same spot. Finally, I noted it was gone and I thought that it finally fluttered off and away. However, a closer inspection of the area and I found the same moth dead on the ground beneath the window. It had its life to live and for some reason it chose to alight in one spot and stay there until it expired. I couldn't help but think that it had wasted its existence.

It didn't take me long to bridge my thoughts from that poor moth to my own life. I too fall into ruts and patterns that find me in the same place at the same time each day. Anyone who might observe me might think my existence is little different from that poor moth. They might just walk away shaking their head thinking that I am wasting my existence. ... Sigh.

I thought a bit about the book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Donald Miller. The basis of this work was that several years earlier Miller had released a best seller and he lived with the high of increased attention, increased publicity, and increased money. Shortly afterwards, however, he found himself in a dark valley in his life. Sad, lonely, and depressed he spent some time thinking of life as a novel and what it takes to live a life worth reading. As he wrapped his mind about a plan, the weight and frequency of his sighs diminished rapidly.

Miller's essential nugget though was not to try to emulate someone else's story, but to find a path that excites you. When finding even a glimmer of motivation to flutter away from that window pane, who knows to where the wind will take you.