Life is an interesting journey. It has a lot of peaks and valleys and circles and lines. And stars and flowers and rain and wind. There’s something new everyday amidst my routine, although I may not recognize it at the time. My single, daily hope is that in some small detail of my day I can find a gem that glistens in the right light.

Our everyday lives aren’t that exciting. However, that’s what most of our life span consists of, the day-to-day. We can plan for our next vacation or look forward to the weekend or dream about distant lands and adventures. Mainly, we’re here and now in our routine. That’s not a bad thing. I believe we have to search for the deeper meaning in our habitual practices. It’s in the repetition that we lose perspective. It’s my hope to transcend the mundane into the extraordinary.

It’s easier said then done. My life doesn’t feel all that exceptional when I have yet another person on the end of the line expressing their dissatisfaction with me, my organization, and the world in general. There are days when I feel like a used floor mat. It’s when I can make a connection with a person and create an understanding between us that the remarkable starts to unfold.

There are seven billion people in this world and it is an incomparable event when people can understand another’s perspective. Each life is unique in its experiences, hopes, and feelings. To be able to place yourself in another’s position and see the world through their life takes an earnestness that can be difficult to achieve when one is years past adolescence.

As the years pile up we tend to downplay our experiences. The change of leaves into their autumn dress is no longer as inspirational, a shooting star no longer provokes the wonder it once did, and a sunset doesn’t lift the heart in its beauty. We’ve seen it once and again and the miraculous becomes mundane. The world becomes ordinary.

It isn’t ordinary. It never has been. The delicate balance between earth and sky and stars that makes any of this possible is far from commonplace. It’s a wonder that we’re here at all. We have a place, here and now, that is uniquely our own. We just have to be able to recognize it as such.

My hope in life is simple: to enjoy every moment of it because moments are what make up my life and yours and everyone else’s. Moments are all we have, one after the next, and in each an opportunity to further understand what wonder makes up this life.

Keri lives in Boyle Street, a place full of extraordinary moments.