Fleeting moments can last a lifetime | 3 minute read

When you’ve spend a career writing for living, you start to collect favourite words. Maybe it isn’t just us wordy folk — maybe this is more common than I realize. Anyway, a word I’ve always loved, since the first time I heard it and Googled its meaning, is sonder.

It was coined by John Koenig in his Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. It means “the profound realization that every person has a life as complex and vivid as your own, filled with their own ambitions, relationships, and routines, even if you are merely an extra in their story,”

The way I think about is that every single person is a main character, a supporting cast member, or an extra in dozens — if not hundreds or even thousands — of overlapping stories that unfold throughout time.

It’s a humbling thought and I like thoughts that humble me.

I was recently reminded of this word when I read a story about a woman who was trying to contact a man who, for one fleeting moment in her life, impacted her in such a way that she remembered him 24 years later.

You can read that story below, in the pebble.

Before that, though, ruminate on this idea that a simple gesture of yours in the past may have touched someone in such a way that they remember it decades later. It’s a nice thing to think about — and maybe a reminder that small acts of kindness can leave permanent marks on people, even if we pass them for mere moments as our individual stories overlap.

The pebble

The challenge

Think of a time when a small gesture had a lasting effect on you. And know that you’ve likely had that same effect on countless people throughout your life.