"And you may find yourself in another part of the world
And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile
And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife
And you may ask yourself-Well...How did I get here?"
-Talking Heads

Am I allowed to admit that I have no idea where I'm going with this? Perhaps that's my problem however - the fact that I always need to know where I'm going. The present is never recognized because I'm too concerned with where I'm headed or where I've been in the past.

My life, you see, has become a menagerie of images strewn haphazardly on the cutting room floor. With the custodian's nightly rendezvous, the discarded fragments and broken pieces are swept up, never to be seen again. I've stumbled my way through life in this very manner. I was never alone, but always fearful of togetherness, that mending of the completed picture. Whoever was supposed to send the script for my approval had either not done their job or else I had misplaced it. There was no man feeding me cues, no card with which to retrieve my lines. The plot lacked depth, the sound stage was cold, and I had once again been left the lone act in what was supposed to be an ensemble production.

Those who I've connected with have meant everything at the instance of their particular cameo, but just like the star who makes only a brief appearance, those people closest to me have quickly departed, leaving center stage for the next act. The problem is, there have been so many cameo appearances, each shining spectacularly for that brief moment, that it has become hard to put a finger on just which one had the largest box office draw - which one out of those who meant everything, really did mean anything.

And what about those moments and those people who traverse their way past our collective for those brief instances? What about the images that are cast aside, or simply not recognized as playing an important role in the "whole" picture at the time? Perhaps we simply aren't paying enough attention to the small stuff. Perhaps it takes a wake up call to make us realize that it's more about the pool of tiny serendipitous moments, rather than the big picture events.

There are a great many ways in which mortality can be thrown in our face. A great many ways in which we are reminded quite brutally of our existence. Today I swerved off the freeway to avoid a five-car collision, one car of which had overturned, leaving a man hanging bloodied in the passenger seat. Five seconds earlier and perhaps it would have been me who was left unrecognizable, five seconds later and I would have passed by unscathed, unnoticed, and unaware.

Twenty years ago my father curled his jaguar around a light pole after being run off the road by a hit-and-run driver. The passenger side was devoid of a warm body because he had made a pit stop prior to picking up his six year old daughter, me. This empty seat where I was to have been sitting was now crushed with five inches of space left between the leather seat and the roof of the car.

How quickly our lives can be altered. How quickly we can be erased from existence. How instantly our decisions can have irreversible effects leaving us forever changed. In a society where time is of the essence and decision-making is critical, how do the small choices that leave us taking the bus rather than that subway we missed by a fraction of a second really move us through the many pathways of life? Are we guided by our own actions, or are we simply moved by those forks in the road that force us to take another route?

When we stand within that defining moment, do we really recognize it as such?

I have often been told to relax, to live in the moment, and I must admit that I have a hard time with this concept. It seems I'm always regretting the past or working out in my head the ways in which I'll be able to gain a better grasp on my future. Our lives, however, are simply made up of a string of moments, all of which shape our lives, guide us through our days, and lead us to become the people we are. Standing in the present and reflecting backwards, I know exactly how I arrived here, at this place from which I'm now writing to you. A chance encounter with an editor led me to this magazine, which in turn led to ideas about contributing a column, and here I am. This in turn made me realize that my heart lay in the pen, or in this case, the keyboard, and I'm now devoted to finding my niche as a writer rather than falling into corporate monotony. So you see, one chance encounter, and my future is completely reshaped.

We order white bread rather than wheat, make a right turn rather than a left, and forget to say goodbye or I love you to those who mean the most. Do we even give a second thought as to the consequence of the seemingly mundane choices we make in our lives? In most instances, perhaps not. We'd simply become too neurotic a society if we were all banging our heads against the wall over our bread choice.

I suppose what I'm questioning here are the resounding truths that lie behind those moments of happenstance. It's always been an intriguing concept to me - those chance encounters, that moment of spilled coffee on a stranger's shirt that leads to marriage, the misspelled e-mail address that was meant to go to a business contact that actually gets answered by a long lost friend. Then there was the time you rear ended the woman in front of you only to find out that she was the same freckle-faced rag-a-muffin who used to throw gum in your hair in the 2nd grade, but has now grown into an ethereal goddess.

The point I'm trying to make here (yes, there is a point) is that we have become too accustomed to passing right through moments without really feeling them, without truly experiencing and living through them. You may stand ten years from now a successful author, with a beautiful wife, living in a Parisian flat over looking the most spectacular view in the city. But how did you get there? Can you trace your steps backwards; can you pinpoint those moments that were integral in shaping your future?

If you take one point of meaning from this article, let it be this. We have been conditioned to move through life with blinders on. Stopping to smell the flowers just isn't an option. Did you even notice the flowers as you passed by in that frenzied 100 mile per hour scurry? We have been desensitized from our state of consciousness and left to wander in a sort of wide eyed sleep walk. We have been driven toward our destination without being taught how to reflect upon each moment while the moment is with us. I don't believe I'd have to ponder so much about my past if I had only learned how to live each moment as if it alone were my eternity. The real message here being, that finding unity within a reflection on the past, an active participation in the present, and an eagerness toward the future, is perhaps the only means to finding balance. How does one not falter in the present without seeking guidance through past experiences? How does one know the feeling of excited anticipation without casting an eye toward the future? The real hazard lies in getting trapped in any of the two non-present scenarios.

The same man who led me to you, to this column, to this space on a page wherein I'm free to speak my mind, also supplied me with a quote that I'll keep with me forever. It's become a constant reminder to live in the present, with my eyes directed toward the future, but still with the constant awareness that the serendipitous events that took place in my past could have a resounding effect on my future.