The small things we miss

Not everything we miss is important.

Someone says something while we are thinking about something else. A friend smiles at us and we don't quite notice. We walk past something beautiful without looking up. Most of these moments are small.

I’m curious about how many small things we miss when our attention is somewhere else.

When our attention is occupied

We can be with someone and still be thinking about what happened earlier, what we need to do later or what is happening on our phone.

We might hear the conversation without really taking it in. We might be looking at someone without really seeing them.

Our attention can be close by, but not quite there.

The things we don't know we've missed

The difficult thing about missing something is that we don't always know it happened.

We may not notice the expression on someone's face. We may not hear the quieter part of what they were saying. We may walk past a familiar place without seeing something that has changed.

There is no way to know everything we miss.

Perhaps we don't need to.

When we are familiar with something

Sometimes we stop noticing things simply because we know them so well.

We see the same people. Walk the same streets. Sit in the same places. We can begin to move through familiar moments without really looking at them. Yet people change. Places change. We change.

There can still be something new to notice.

Looking up again

We cannot pay attention to everything.

Our attention naturally drifts. We will become distracted. We will miss things.

Perhaps what matters is not trying to notice everything, but becoming aware when our attention has gone somewhere else.

We might look up from our phone. Listen a little more closely. Notice the person beside us. Look around at what is happening.

What might we notice?

There are always small things happening around us.

A change in someone's voice. A moment of laughter. A bird nearby. The way the light falls across a room. Something someone has been trying to tell us.

We may still miss many of them.

But perhaps sometimes, when our attention returns, we notice something we might otherwise have missed.

I wonder what you might notice the next time you look up and give your attention to what is happening around you.