The Day I Almost Stepped on a Pigeon

On the Psychology of Meaningful and Mundane Moments

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Several Less Than Memorable Days Passed By

Most of life isn’t a highlight reel. It’s a collection of days that blend into each other, marked only by minor annoyances, fleeting amusements, and the occasional bizarre interaction that clings to your memory like gum on a sidewalk. Nobody asks, What did you accomplish on March 3rd, three years ago? They assume it wasn’t much. But maybe it was something. Maybe the worth of a day isn’t in its measurable impact but in the moments that won’t quite let go.

Because: some days don’t announce their significance. They slip by unnoticed, waiting for years to reveal their quiet influence. Like the day I sat in a waiting room flipping through a magazine and saw an obscure quote that wouldn’t mean anything to me until a decade later. John Williams, in Stoner, put it like this: “It is true that we shall be as nothing in the end. But that is not the point. It is the past and the future that matter.” I read it absentmindedly, put the magazine down, and now it lives in my bones.

And this sits in a little box in my brain with the lyrics for Testify by Rage Against the Machine, “Who controls the past now controls the future. Who controls the present now controls the past. Who controls the past now controls the future. Who controls the present now?”

And then there are the absurd, inexplicable encounters. Like the time a guy on the train leaned over and whispered, “You don’t need money if you have confidence.” He was wearing two different shoes and smelled like cinnamon gum and regret. Maybe he was deranged. Maybe he was an oracle. Either way, I’ve never forgotten it.

The Currency of Small Moments

Most people overrate milestones—promotions, weddings, finished projects—and ignore the odd, offbeat moments that shape who we are. They measure life in grand events but miss the richness of a barista mangling their name (Dandruff?), or an old woman in a grocery store muttering, “That man looks like he’s about to steal something, but I respect his posture.”

We live in fragments. María Zambrano wrote, “We learn to live in fragments, to recognize the broken pieces that hold the essence of our days.” If you measured life by achievements alone, you’d miss the texture.

Like the day I nearly stepped on a pigeon.

Or the time I tried to learn Chinese Checkers, then quit in 20 minutes.

The morning I saw someone crying in their car at a red light and felt something I couldn’t name.

Or the night I left a New York City club to find my car windows smashed. The thief took one thing: my grandfather’s black trench coat, the only item I truly cared about. I wore that religiously. I felt formidable inside its warmth.

None of these make a eulogy. But they carve into you, leaving marks you’ll spend a lifetime tracing.

The Unremarkable Days That Aren’t

One of the best things about memory is that it refuses to take orders. You might expect to remember your graduation day in vivid detail, but what stays with you is the car ride home, when your friend said something that made you laugh so hard you spilled a slushie on your lap.

Consider the days you don’t think about—days that didn’t feel important at the time but somehow remain lodged in your brain. Like the day you were running late, cut through an alley, and saw a cat sitting on a dumpster like it was contemplating the fall of civilization. Or the afternoon when you listened to a song you hadn’t heard in years, and for reasons you couldn’t explain, it made your chest feel like it was full of water.

Sometimes it’s not even your own life that lingers. You pass by a couple arguing on the street and catch one sentence—“You can’t possibly expect me to respect someone who eats yogurt with a fork.” Who were they? Did they break up? You’ll never know. But you’ll remember.

The Inescapable Beauty of the Mundane

Even the days that feel like nothing do something to us. We like to believe that change happens in bursts, but more often it seeps in gradually.

There’s a line from John Koenig’s The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows that nails it: “The truth is, life is just a series of days, and most of them don't need to matter, except that they all do.”

You don’t always notice the shifts while they’re happening. It’s only later that you realize you’re no longer quite the same person who used to need constant background noise to think, or who once believed people who enjoyed running were pathological liars. You might have changed because of a thousand small nudges—one conversation, one book, one otherwise forgettable Tuesday where something, somehow, tilted your perspective.

Philosopher Agnes Callard wrote, “We are all in the middle of something. Even when we are standing still.” Life happens in the gaps. It happens when you’re stuck in traffic. When you’re scrolling through your phone and land on a comment that makes you laugh inappropriately loud. When you make eye contact with a stranger and share a fleeting, inexplicable moment of understanding.

If you’re waiting for life to feel profound at all times, you’ll be disappointed. But if you pay attention to the way an unremarkable day can still hold a sentence, a glance, a stray thought that lingers for years, you’ll start to see the richness in the forgettable.

Several less-than-memorable days passed by. But they weren’t empty. They never are.

Provocation

A book written by a close friend of mine reinforced this perspective. He reminds us how to find meaning in the mundane and elevate the big and small moments in areas of life that matter most. You can grab a copy [here].

Yes, this book is valuable for improving your conversations. But listening is relevant to the moments I listed above and much more.

Wait until you get the details on frameworks such as this:

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Todd B. Kashdan is the author of several books including The Upside of Your Dark Side (Penguin) and The Art of Insubordination: How to Dissent and Defy Effectively (Avery/Penguin) and Professor of Psychology and Founder of The Well-Being Laboratory at George Mason University.

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