The solution to my life occurred to me one evening while I was ironing a shirt. —Alice Munro—
We all receive flashes of illumination, messages likes shafts of lightning from one part of our brain to another. This is the answer! This is the meaning of life! Mathematicians tell stories of equations solved in a dream; we cling to the notion that an apple beaned Isaac Newton.
We all experience moments that seem like the brilliant knitting together of our fortunes. At such a moment, we are happy. We wish this could last forever. But the moment, like the illuminating flash, fades in intensity and is gone. The next moment holds something new.
What we may not remember is that these revelations and these moments of joy are prepared for, day by day. The slow building up of ordinary acts and thoughts prepare us for the flash blinding clarity. The solution to our lives isn’t a meteor; it’s a mosaic, made up of many ordinary acts and choices, plans and reflections. And oh, how sweet the flashes, when they come!
Because I am the source of the questions, I really do know all the answers.