What Events Light Up Your Life?

When I was a kid, Christmas was everything; New Year’s Eve was a distant second cousin. Christmas was all about presents, rich food, and a secret test of my parent’s affection quickly followed by a post-sugar rush and shoes that didn’t fit.

I still look forward to a little Yuletide, but there’s something about getting older that makes every new year just a bit more precious and deserving of my attention.

This year I planned my new year with a little exercise I thought you might like.

Activities or events

Life is sort of like watching a movie. You’re left with a whole bunch of feelings, but you can’t remember big chunks of it. So this year I started planning forward by looking back, month by month, through my trusty Moleskine journal at what happened. 

That’s when I spotted events.

The first four months I was mired in endless meetings for a major building project at our local paddling centre while labouring most days with a friend to renovate our kitchen, plus a list of other house fixes. During those same months, my dear mother-in-law, who I had visited every week for the past two years, passed. I taught XC skiing for the first time in 30 years and trained for the Boston Marathon which was followed by a road tour of the New England coast.

Guess what stood out? 

Definitely not the meetings and email. Not the stack of reports, grant applications, and financial projections. Not even tearing out the horribly green kitchen and ancient drywall (as much fun as that was). Those were activities. It’s events, like losing a loved one, teaching skiing, running the Boston marathon, and the sweet satisfaction of wrapping up a big project that are painted in my memory with permanent ink.

Steeped in emotion

Many studies have reported on the indelible imprint events steeped in emotion can have on our memories. We remember the feeling of holding a tiny, squirming puppy more than that of walking that same dog one year later. Just as we remember the dinner with friends more than the experience of shopping for the dinner. One was packed with emotions, the other a routine trip to pack groceries.

Perhaps the most dramatic example of this was a study launched immediately following 911. Within one week of the tragic event, researchers across the United States distributed surveys asking about the circumstances of how respondents heard about the event and what facts they remember about the event itself. Follow-up surveys were then distributed 11, 25, and 119 months later. As you might expect, within the first year small details surrounding the attack were lost. But, the majority of memories were retained - even 10 years later.

In the end, mine was a busy year - like every year - but what I circled in my journal were the loved ones who passed on, the challenges I took on (like three marathons, medalling in two of them), what we created together (like launching our charity No Small Thing), the art I created (like a book I wrote for my daughter’s 30th birthday), and the trips we took.

Make memories

“There seems something more speakingly incomprehensible in the powers, the failures, the inequalities of memory, than in any other of our intelligences.” Jane Auston, Mansfield Park

Once I finished my cluttered, one-page, summary of the year, I flipped my lens from looking back to looking forward. I know my days and months will predictably be full of activities—dinners with my partner, email and meetings, writing and artwork, runs and gym time. All good—all activities that make the wheels spin. But it is the events that are bookmarks in my story and that I can recall later, steeped with emotion, as if they just happened.

“When my kids were younger we took them on a road trip through the States and Eastern Canada.” a friend told me last night. “I can’t remember what I did last week, but I vividly remember so much of that trip.”

Building my trellis

What events will light you up?

For me it will always be trips with my kids, adventures with my partner, learning a new skill, anything I ‘create’ (like the book for my daughter, or the 10-meter long, winery-quality trellis I built for our kiwi and grape vines), and definitely celebrations.

And here’s the kicker to this exercise. Every event I circled was one more opportunity to revisit it. The feeling when a loved one passes on and the celebration of life that follows, a special birthday, or sunset at the end of a long hike. Those are the moments that carve a spot in my memories and light me up when I think of them.

Small Wins

In the spirit of making Small Wins, this might be a fun doorway into planning your year. I would pause to to meditate on your intentions (the “Aware” in the Small Wins model): what do you hope to achieve from this exercise. 

Next, open a new journal, list the months down one side (I urge you to stick to one page) and then fill in high points, low points, celebrations, achievements and everything in between. Don’t worry about being precise or picking up on every detail. A time limit on the exercise might help.

Finally, circle the events that stand out. What are they? Why are they important? What do you remember about them?

And then step away.

I’m a big fan of letting my subconscious squirrels chase each other for a bit before trying to make sense of anything important. And then, when you are ready, begin to plot out your year, events first.