We often spend too much time closing in on ourselves to remember to step back and smell the roses. But when we look up from our lives in those random seconds of the day, what we can observe is quite amazing. What we can see is a true testament to the development of what makes us unique.

Consider this: An open mall food court, outside surrounded by shopping plazas. There is roughy fifteen or twenty painted white round metal tables, and plenty of matching chairs for people to sit and eat. It is mid afternoon, on a pleasant summer afternoon, with a light breeze in the air. The area has many people milling about, shopping, eating, socializing. Nothing seemingly out of the ordinary. But within a single moment so much could be seen, if one could see it from every angle.

In that moment, a mother of 3 children had just walked outside from the doorway of ‘Lowry’s Candy Shop’. She had two of her sons desperately pulling on her arms trying to get her to return to the store, but she dragged them with her nonetheless. She took looked forward out into the food court and saw a young couple holding hands, walking past. They were very much in love with a certain aura in which you cannot see with your eyes. They strolled on by and the mother returned to her children, who only cared about candy.

In that moment, a grey haired man sat alone on the edge of the seats and read a newspaper, smoking a cigar. He folded his paper down for a moment to look across the tables. He caught sight of a young kid with a skateboard and another older man wearing a biker jacket a few seats over. They were shuffling amongst themselves low at a table. The old man spotted a stack of cash, and then a bag being passed forth. He shrugged and went back to his own business.

In that moment, a woman came running down one of the streets, and looking desperately around. She quickly turned and darted into one of the shops named ‘Batagula’s Garden Shop’ and hid by the window sill. She watched as another man came down the street and stopped right where she had, and looked desperately around. “Shoplifter!” The man shouted, and then continued on in the wrong direction.

In that moment, a man in a white coat, looked out among the shops, painting a picture of the buildings on an easel. He looked up and spotted two men fighting. They were struggling and spinning around, arms locked together. Then one of them threw the other to the ground. Just as this happened, a girl came sprinting up the street, paused and then ran away. A man came running up after her. The two men were now trading punches on the ground.

In that moment, a man up on the second floor of one of the shops, peered a rifle out of the window and adjusted the scope. He looked out among the open food court for his target. He spotted a man dressed in a golf polo and khaki shorts. The target was ordering food at a nearby hotdog stand. The man checked his watch and then rested his hand on the trigger, ready to eliminate his target.

In that moment, a greasy hotdog vendor was putting the works on a dog for some golfer when he looked up across the courtyard. He saw a young couple holding hands walking away and down an alleyway. He then saw a man painting a picture between them. The hotdog vendor could tell the man was a talented artist.

In that moment, a young punk with a skateboard was getting his hands on a bag of ‘party favors’ from a friend of a friend. He grabbed the bag of goods nervously under the foodcourt table, and tried to look away from what he was doing, as to not to draw suspicion. As he looked up into the sky, he caught a glint of something in the second story window of one of the shops across from him.

In that moment, a man who was being pummeled by another man out in the street for dancing with his wife, stopped to catch his breath and wipe blood from his forehead. He rolled over onto his stomach and put his hands in front of him to push himself off the ground. Before he did so, he witnessed a man stopping in the courtyard ahead and yelling “Shoplifter!”

In that moment, a young girl was passing through with her boyfriend, hand in hand. She winced her nose at an old man’s cigar smoke, and looked away from him in disgust, and instead back at a mother, fighting with her children outside of a candy shop. She tried to contain a giggle and turned her attention back to her boyfriend.

Life is nothing but a series of choices and chance. Some of us look up, and some of us look ahead. Some of us sit back and some of us walk on by. But all of us have these seconds of clarity, when we all look up and see something different. It doesn’t happen every day, but when it does… its worth remembering.