Finding Important Lessons in the Everyday
Sep 29, 2022
Owen O'Kane
Jan 21, 2025 00
Life is offering us lessons all the time. Every interaction, event and experience comes with a useful takeaway. But, if you want to benefit from those lessons, you have to be open to learning them, and you need to know how to see them when they arrive.
When it comes to personal development and growth, there's a lot of unhelpful discourse around these so-called 'lightbulb moments'. This discourse tends to promote the idea that lessons come to us in the form of extraordinary Nirvana-like epiphanies and signs: the bigger, the better.
As a young Catholic boy, I was brought on many pilgrimages to shrines honouring the Virgin Mary. Let me preface this by saying that these pilgrimages bring hope to millions of people, and my intention here is not to be disrespectful of anyone's beliefs. Rather, I tell this story to make a point.
One such shrine was in the Republic of Ireland, and my late mum would take me and my brothers on a six-hour coach journey to watch the 'moving statue'. The statue was meant to not only move, but cry. We would sit up all night, exhausted, waiting for the statue to move. It was often summertime when we went on these pilgrimages. But it was Ireland so it was cold and wet. As you can imagine, if you had 50 or 60 people deliriously tired, sitting out in the cold watching a statue, then eventually someone was bound to see something moving. And they did.
Not only did the statue move and cry but there were also reports of it waving. The moving statue would also invite a few guests along, including Jesus and some well-known saints. It was quite the celestial celebrity bash.
People would leave elated because they had had signs of 'something bigger'. They believed they were being blessed and gifted with lessons: Jesus saw them, He saw everything they did and did not do, their belief in Him would be rewarded in Heaven, He forgave them, they were good people, they had value. I believed I would catch pneumonia and one day write a book called The Moving Statue watch out for that one . But my point is a serious one: our fellow pilgrims were looking to the extraordinary for an inspiring lesson.
But the most powerful lessons are often in the ordinary. They are in the simple moments. They are in moments of silence. They emerge when you listen. They emerge when you see without judgement. They are in the 'cup of tea' moments. They are the stranger who smiles at you at the bus stop. They are a friend who calls when you need it most. They are in disappointment, failure and letdowns. Lessons are everywhere. They are the moments that move you forward, help you under- stand, prompt decisions and help you find clarity. They are those unexplainable moments when some- thing lands, and suddenly it feels right.
These moments are sadly often lost. In my experience this happens when we:
Owen O'Kane