The Stop You Will Remember

Cafe

The car is here because it needs fuel. That is the only reason anyone stops at a petrol station in the middle of a desert. The transaction is functional, the stop is necessary, and the moment will not be remembered. 

The plane landed for an entirely different reason. It doesn’t need the fuel. It came for the photograph, the story, to enjoy the Café: the small act of doing something in a place that makes no sense for a plane to be. The pilot will remember this stop long after the car has forgotten it.

Same location. Entirely different relationship to being there.

Most of what we do is the car. Necessary, functional, efficient, and unmemorable. We show up because we have to, complete what is required, and move on. There is nothing wrong with that. Most of life runs on it.

But the plane reminds us that the same location, the same moment, the same ordinary Tuesday can be experienced entirely differently depending on why you chose to be there. Intention changes the quality of presence. It changes what you notice, what you take away, and whether the stop becomes a story or simply another entry in the log.

The question is not whether you are showing up. It is why.

What would it take to land somewhere that you will remember?

David R. Smith