What are greatest moments? Are they the best moments in life, the ones we remember or the events we try to forget? When asked, people generally seem to say the moments they consider the best: Weddings, graduations, the birth of children and personal enlightenment. The key word here, it seems, is Greatest, and Great does not necessarily mean best, it means most important. The Greatest moments in life are just as likely to be tragedies as they are triumphs because bad moments are just as likely to influence and impact on us as enjoyable moments. So perhaps when we say what are The Greatest Moments in life, what we really mean is; what pivotal moments in life have the most effect.
"metaphysicist and Philosopher, once described time as an extremely turbulent Ocean of infinite width and unknown length. The present, he said, is a storm of infinite width and the length of a single moment. As the storm passes across the ocean, it freezes it at that precise instant and it becomes the past"
J. McTaggart
Those of us with memory can recall the past, and it’s these reflections that we often term the Greatest Moments. People consider memories, and the memories they term Great especially, to be an important part of their identity and character. But although most people agree that they have had greatest moments, what these moments actually are is a highly subjective matter, both for individuals and societies.
That’s not to say the past, and our memories, are completely irrelevant. It is, however, a mistake to place a great amount of importance on memories. George Santayana was an American Philosopher who famously said “those who forget the lessons of the past are doomed to repeat them”, a quote that is often used, reasonably you might think, to contradict the importance of the present over past events. The question is though, where lies the importance of George’s statement? In my opinion, the truth of the statement lies in the importance of applying ourselves to the present, and not to contemplation of past events. It’s only in the present that we have an opportunity to act differently, only in the present do we have the opportunity to learn from past events and although the lesson could be considered useful, it’s the application that contributes to you as a person. Think carefully, because the past might be useful, but only when its applied to the present, only when it contributes towards the greatest moment in life.
Rather than memories of events in the past, the Greatest moment in life is the only moment in life that we can live. The instant that we can control, the most important time and the only moment we can experience is the now, the present and it’s only by realising this and acting accordingly that we can experience the truly great and choose the direction of our lives.
