Research indicates that happiness and/or validation does NOT come from a single event. Lottery winning, Oscar-winning, Rock Star moments all produce momentary “highs,” but do not move the happiness scale. Nevertheless I—and others too?—have a penchant for wanting some singular event to establish one’s meaning, place in life, worthiness of love, all leading to a place of irrevocable happiness.
I flashed to a memory from about age 6. We were in the car and my dad pointed to the odometer; it was very close to turning to all the same digits. I think it was going to be 111111.1. I remember the feeling of excitement; that I was going to be at a special place and time and I wanted to focus my attention on it, look at it as it happened, burn it in.
Then I got distracted by something, took my eye off the odometer, and by the time my attention returned, it was past. Something like 111111.3. I felt oddly crushed, as though I had missed some great opportunity, some important juncture. I remember trying to figure out how long it would take for all the numbers to line up again, despairing that I would ever have that opportunity again.
I have not yet caught one of those singular odometer moments and did not even note the relevance of 11.11.11 until after the fact; even then, I felt only the tiniest bit of regret that I did not set aside a small portion of that day to revel in its numerological significance.
~ A Bubba Guest Post
Photo source: Pixabay
This brought back memories of when I worked at the police station when I was just out of high school. At the end of the shift, the officers would play poker using the odometer of their squad cars. Sometimes you would see them driving around the parking lot several times so they would have certain numbers to improve their “hand”. The funniest was when they would be driving in reverse!!
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That’s a riot!
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Missed, all in the blink of an eye.
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So many moments in life like that. And some of them seem so important at the time. Until they’re forgotten. Often more quickly than we think during the time of our distress.
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