The Moment You’re Trying to Get Through

Imagine this.

You struggle with all your might to get your little kiddos to the park.
The hats. The mittens. The gloves. The coats. Boots. Snacks. Extra clothes.
The screaming. The whining. The complaining.

You hear yourself say,
“Just get dressed. I’m trying to do something FUN for you!”

Eventually, you make it out the door.

At the park, they scatter and play.
You feel relief—and also frustration—that it took so much effort to do something so simple for them.

Then a stranger walks up and says,
“Enjoy this time. It goes by so fast.”

You half-smile.
“Yeah,” you say. “It sure does.”

Inside, everything shows up at once.
Guilt that you aren’t enjoying it enough.
Gratitude that someone brought you back to the moment.
Love. Exhaustion. Tenderness. Overwhelm.

You feel it all.

The Friction We Don’t Name

This happens to me often when I’m out in public with all three of my kids. Whether we’re grooving or in chaos, it never fails—someone says, “You sure do have your hands full,” or “Enjoy this time, it flies by.”

Most of the time, they aren’t judging. They’re offering a piece of their own experience. A quiet observation. Just human noticing.

And without realizing it, they’re offering something else too.

A pause.

A chance to choose how I continue to move through the day.

A Gentle Reframe

I don’t think these strangers mean to impose anything. I think many of them are offering a gentle reframing. Maybe they see the tiredness in my face. Or the joy—depending on the day. They’re offering the frame through which they now see it.

They’ve been there before.
They may even be speaking to their younger selves—the ones who were too rushed, too overwhelmed, too inside the moment to notice.

In a world far more disconnected than ancient times—when wisdom was passed around fires instead of through screens—this may be one of the few ways we still pass insight along.

It’s human nature to pass on wisdom.
Even when it comes from a stranger at the park or the mall.

The Stoics believed that suffering doesn’t come from events themselves, but from the judgments we place on them. In other words, the moment isn’t the problem—the meaning we assign to it often is.

And that’s the quiet choice these small encounters offer:
not a different moment,
but a different way of seeing
the one we’re already in.

The Practice: Reframing in Real Life

When we’re in the heat of the moment, if we can step outside ourselves for just a breath—a brief pause—we can notice what’s arising and gently attempt to reframe.

And because we’re human, there will be many times when emotion takes the lead.

In those moments, reframing often comes later.

At night.
When the kids are asleep.
When the house is quiet.

That reflection is the practice.

Take getting ready for the park.

We can reframe that moment by remembering: these are little human beings with full inner worlds. Play on their minds. Big emotions in their bodies. Expecting socks, shoes, coats, hats, and mittens to go on quickly ignores coordination, attention span, and the reality of managing multiple children at once.

It isn’t you.
It isn’t them.

It’s a moment with many moving parts—and three of the people involved are children.

Your priority is the future: getting out the door, arriving, the payoff of the park.
Their reality is the present: the giggling, the chase, the game of running away while you try to catch them with a sock.

They don’t see the future fun.
They’re already having fun.

And maybe that’s the reframe.

The moment you’re trying to get through is the moment.
The fun you’re planning is already happening—just not in the way you imagined.

Returning to Self

The danger is believing you are failing every time emotion takes over.

But the practice is the awareness of that moment.
Each time you notice—I was swept up—you are doing the work.

Yes, it can feel better to pause in the moment. That can feel like a win.
But it is not the only time you are practicing.

We are all a work in progress.

And there may be no greater spiritual teachers than our children,
because they are absolute masters at living in the moment.