The Perfect Moment Theory:

Insight 72 | People are great. But sometimes enough is enough. And that includes enough of you.

It’s a bit uncomfortable to admit, but I learned this difficult life truth the hard way - by overstaying my welcome at a friend's event and not realizing it until it was too late. 

That day, I learned that knowing when to leave the party is just as important as knowing which parties are worth your time. 

Ladies and gentlemen: Just because you fit, doesn’t mean you belong.*

(*The bolded words above are a variation of a quote made by New York Times Bestselling author Helen Ellis, who wrote, "Just because you can fit into something tight doesn't mean that you belong in it.”)

It was terribly embarrassing. I didn't feel it in the moment, but I couldn't shake the sticky feeling encroaching on my soul while on the drive back home. I tried to drown it out with music and conversation. I turned towards my friend who was driving, and played it off like nothing had happened. He too seemed to be wrestling with the awkwardness of it, but we had both seemingly agreed, without needing words, not to discuss it. This lasted about twenty minutes. I couldn’t bear it. None of it felt right. What had just happened? 

It was the end of the year, classes had wrapped up, and in good fashion, a friend of ours had invited us over to their annual Christmas party. While I've never been one to play into popularity games, I was well aware of the weight that this particular invitation held. It was coming from one of the most well-known and beautiful girls in our high school… in my mind, this invitation was equivalent to having “made it”. I was part of the cool kids now 😎.

I counted down the days till the eventful night. When it came, I donned my favorite Snoopy Christmas sweater and red checkerboard pants. We arrived at a goldilocks hour, not too early and not too late. Those hours were incredibly wholesome. Everyone was laughing and enjoying the festive spirit as we ate and played games together. Nothing could go wrong. 

After the main events, with hot cocoa in hand and our bellies full, we naturally broke off into separate groups to each go and do our own thing. Some stayed in the living room talking over the latest news, some stepped outside to enjoy the rare and cool Florida air, and others took out some guitars to jam away. I started off joining the music group, but as the night slowly wound down, we merged with the outside group and ended together singing songs around the fire. 

By the time Cinderella's curfew hit, most had left, the final few were making their way out, and there were only three of us left by the crackling heat: the host, my friend, and I. Looking back, it seems so obvious that this would have been the time to call it, thank the family for their hospitality, and hit the road. However, in that moment, my naivety and eagerness, fueled by the joy of the moment, blinded me to this realization. I clutched the guitar harder as we started riffing and making up our own new songs. The thrill of the creativity carried us on.. maybe too far. A few minutes turned into 30, which turned into 45. 

Suddenly, we hear the home's back door open and the host's brother come out, “Hey boys, I think it's time to wrap up and call it a night.” And in that moment, it all came crashing down. My ignorance confronted, I checked my watch and the message became clear: We had overstayed our welcome.

Now, I don’t tell this story to throw a pity party but instead to tease out the valuable lesson I learned that night: everything has its perfect point, and you need to learn to recognize it in order to never tarnish the moment or the memory. What had begun as a night of innocent revelry ended with us being metaphorically pushed out. Not because we weren't welcome or didn't fit, but because, regardless of that, we couldn’t see that we no longer belonged.

It was my beautiful mother who helped me come to this understanding. In her sage wisdom, she connected the dots I couldn't see before. She explained to me how moments in life are often like a bell curve, a ramp towards the peak, followed by a fall.  See, the best instances always happen during the rise, and then they culminate once you hit the peak. It’s at this moment,  when you look around and see everyone in good spirits, that you must remind yourself that it may be time to go before the parties are over. When you don’t, you risk being at the wrong place at the wrong time. I mean this in many ways: physically, spiritually, emotionally.

It's similar to waiting for the ideal banana. If you eat it too green, it will taste like cardboard; if you wait too long and it turns all mushy, you may find other uses for it, but it will never be as good as when it was just right and exquisite. This is what my mother aptly named the "Perfect Moment Theory." The point at which you have done what you had to do, and the experience is complete. The moment when it's time to pack up, move forward, and step out of the zone you were in in order to get going into the next one where you need to be headed. It’s the window of time in which the ecstasy of the moment is at its highest, the lesson has been learned, and the memory is untainted and precious.

This revelation has led me to realize that we all do the same thing within our lives. We too often overstay our welcome in places and with people we have no business hanging around anymore. We have a tendency to cling to the familiar and feel threatened by change, and as a result, accustom ourselves to the mediocrity that is found in the comfortable.

But this shouldn’t be so. The wisest man to have ever lived, King Solomon, tells us this himself when he writes in Ecclesiastes 3, There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens…

a time to be born and a time to die,

    a time to plant and a time to uproot,

    a time to kill and a time to heal,

    a time to tear down and a time to build,

    a time to weep and a time to laugh,

    a time to mourn and a time to dance,

   a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,

    a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,

a time to search and a time to give up,

    a time to keep and a time to throw away,

    a time to tear and a time to mend,

    a time to be silent and a time to speak,

    a time to love and a time to hate,

    a time for war and a time for peace.

Notice how he never mentions that any of these activities are perpetual or always ongoing. No, instead, every period has its beginning and its end. Each being important and different, each bound by its limits.

Knowing where one starts and the other ends is the key to guaranteeing you never stay too long in a place you should've walked away from, become bogged down in chains of the past, or feel the pressure to remain with the same group of friends just because you have known them for “forever”.

Yes, it's true. We all love the feeling of belonging. It's warm and fuzzy, and feels like a blanket of safety in a sea of storms. That is because Humans are social creatures who thrive when put into a community. But as we have discussed before, Comfort Kills. 

We often root our identities in the things that bring us comfort and don’t allow ourselves the room for growth, thereby limiting our potential for moving forward. This leads to us developing patterns of behavior that reflect our yearning to stay in our little safety bubbles.

My friends, just because we fit somewhere does not mean we belong.

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They say hindsight is 20/20, and many of us can attest that this is true. But that doesn't mean you can’t improve your foresight: the vision of what's coming.  

It shouldn't have taken someone hollering, “Hey, don't you guys think it's time to call it a night,” for me to confront the fact that I was being rude and irresponsible with their time as well as my own.

Yes, I was comfortable, but because of that, I missed the Perfect Moment and the opportunity to leave the memory of that night on a high note. Similarly, we live this way in our own lives, overstaying the welcomes from prior seasons and trying to live in them years after we should have left.

The Theory isn’t about timing life “perfectly”… It’s about recognizing when perfection has already happened and letting that be what lingers in memory. It's about committing ourselves to learning (and practicing) how to let go of what was, receive what is, and embrace what's to come. There will never be room for the new as long as we remain full of the old.

It is we who must choose to make the room it needs, and that begins by realizing when a season is done and when one is due. Cheers to what's to come.

- Making The Most Of Being Curious

Daniel J. Cuesta

Sources:

Abram Couldn't Stay Comfortable; He Had To Leave In Order To Become Abraham: The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you. - Genesis 12:1

Recognizing The Perfect Moment: If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. - James 1:5

The Past Is The Past, New Things Are Coming. (That Takes Leaving Where You Were To Get Where You're Going): Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? - Isaiah 43:18–19