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The great thing is to try to fashion the life after the pattern shown us in the moment of our highest inspiration; to make our highest moment permanent.225
—Orison Swett Marden
We all have moments in our life in which we are so proud of ourselves, so inspired, so elated with what we have done, that it’s almost as if we were having an out-of-body experience. Life is magical, and we don’t want the feeling to end. These are our highest moments, our highest inspirations, but they are so hard to hold on to! One minute you have it, the next minute it’s gone. Where did it go? Why does it have to leave us like that?
Most people forget their youthful experience of greatness and purpose or at least put it aside somewhere deep in their memory. It happens to all of us: We sub-optimize.
By sub-optimizing I mean that we may have an experience of the highest goal in our lives, but we quickly pull back to the lesser goals that society calls success. We often get frozen in our accomplishments, which may be great, but not the highest or optimal that we can attain. In other words, we settle; we sub-optimize.
In every moment we have a choice: will we act from the highest goal or recede to something less? 226
—Michael Ray
I don’t have a simple formula for making your highest moment permanent in your life; I am still in the process of making it permanent in mine. It’s not always easy, as we can all become consumed by external activities and events. As you read and reread the wisdom from the masters in this book and practice what they are telling you, you may not succeed in making your highest moment permanent, but you will be a lot closer than you are now. I can tell you for a fact that the higher moments will be much more common. There will be far fewer down days in which your highest moments seem like a distant star.
Man stands in strict connection with a higher fact never yet manifested. There is a power over and behind us, and we are the channels of its communications… This open channel to the highest life is the first and last reality, so subtle, so quiet, yet so tenacious… that although I have never heard the expression of it from any other, I know the whole truth is here for me. 227
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
You will still have the down days, but with your newfound wisdom, you will know they won’t last. You will know that what arises does subside. You will no longer get caught up in the perceived dualities that used to take you for wild emotional rides. Even terms like highest moments are difficult to define because there is so much variation in them.
I think we all know what our personal highest moments have felt like, and we know that we want to hold on to them and make them permanent. Like I said, it would be impossible to make these highest moments permanent, but if you aspire to them every day, you are on your way to making them a reality.
I have listed some of my highest moments below. There are obvious omissions, like the birth of my children and getting married. Both are highest moments, but that goes without saying for most of us.
• I remember moments in business, like the time we chopped peanut-butter cups for twenty-one straight days to fill our first major order, as among my highest moments. The whole process—all twenty-one days, not just when we were finished. Sure, it was great to be done and a great feeling of accomplishment, but all twenty-one days were some of my highest moments.
• Running stairs at the stadium when I was in college at Arizona State is another high moment in my memory. I remember the weather being perfect and just feeling so good, so healthy, and so lucky. There was a feeling of exhilaration and euphoria, like I was on top of the world.
• There was the time I was running the trail at Mount Ogden Golf Course and the idea of chopping Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups came to me. That was one of my highest moments.
• Seeing Notre Dame in Paris for the first time was a high moment. Although I am not Catholic, it was not only spiritual and inspirational but also awe-inspiring to me.
• Seeing the ocean live for the first time was one of my highest moments. So was chukar hunting on the Snake River in Oregon on a sunny day after it just snowed, standing on top of a ridge and peering down at the magnificent beauty of the Powder River running into the Snake River. Words alone can’t possibly capture or do justice to the scene and the emotions I felt at the time.
There were plenty of other highest moments—in school, in sports, in writing this book, reading a great book, walking in Central Park in New York. We’ve all had moments like these, moments that you want to cherish and treasure and make them last forever.
But one of my fondest and most treasured “highest moments” was the day I spent with my daughter when she was eleven years old. Not that we hadn’t spent a lot of time together, but this day was particularly memorable and special. My wife was out of town, and it was just the two of us. We did everything together—whatever she wanted to do. We made pancakes together, went to the mall, read, just hung out together all day.
What I remember most about that day was a book that I was reading to her about a small boy from India and how much he loved his father. The little boy’s father was his whole world. His life and world revolved around his father. But this boy’s father was dying, and I knew that while reading the story to my daughter I would get to the part where the boy’s father passes away—and when I did, I could no longer continue reading. Tears welled up in my eyes, and I stopped reading. My daughter didn’t ask me why. She knew. She knew why I couldn’t go on. I didn’t need to explain.
Yes, the story was sad, but it wasn’t about the story or the book. It was about the two of us, together. Her love for me and my love for her. And that we wouldn’t always be together like this. I knew that she would someday be grown with her own children, her own family, and that we might never experience a moment like this again. Those thoughts contributed to my tears. But they were happy tears—tears of joy for how much I loved her, for how much we loved each other. Tears of joy for that moment with her, just the two of us. I relished that day and still do, and I think about it often. I also think it’s the highest of my highest moments.
I can’t think of a grander aspiration than making your highest moments permanent. You may never succeed, but the journey will be worth it, I promise you.