Moments

Life is made up of a neverending series of moments, strung out one after another from the moment we draw our first breath to the final exhalation of our last.

The majority of these moments pass us by without any particular fanfare, being merely fleeting seconds in otherwise unremarkable minutes, hours and days.

There are other moments, though, that have deeply profound effects on our lives, and that once experienced, change us forever.

Sometimes this is a good thing, other times not so good. Some of them we want to hold onto forever, to relive them again and again, remembering a moment of bliss, a moment of happiness, a moment of perfect contentment.

Others, however, we bitterly regret. These moments of rash actions or words, of snap decisions, of uncharacteristic behaviour, dropping our usual vigilence and letting the monster that lives inside each and every one of us break through for the briefest of moments.

The good moments are joyous, the moments that we can retreat to when we need a pick me up, when we need to smile, or remember that things aren't that bad really.

The bad ones, however, are nasty. They lodge themselves in the darkest recesses of our minds and pick and pick and pick at our sanity, reminding us that we're not the white knights we so desperately want to be, that we are in fact just flawed, broken machines, and that some of us will always find a way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

The key to mastering life's moments is to cherish the good ones, and learn from the bad ones, but as with many other things, this is sometimes easier said than done.