Still Learning How to Adult
Scott Lee Shafer
Kim asks: “The book grew out of what you called 'almost insignificant' moments — bathing the dog, loading the dishwasher. What do you think it says about a life well-lived that the ordinary things turned out to be worth preserving?”
Scott: Your question is intriguing because it assumes a life well-lived. I'm not sure any of us can judge that about ourselves with complete certainty.
I have certainly tried. I have tried to be kind more often than not, to help where I could, and to leave people a little better than I found them. Like everyone else, I have made mistakes, carried regrets, and fallen short of who I hoped to be. But as I get older, I care less about measuring anyone’s life by achievements and more about understanding what truly makes it meaningful.
When we're young, significance seems clear. We expect it to come in the form of milestones, achievements, and moments worth celebrating. We think meaning will announce itself.
But after enough time passes, we realize something surprising: life mostly consists of things we once considered unimportant.
It’s not the promotions or awards. It’s not even most of the moments we spent years looking forward to.
What stays with us are the smaller things. Someone in the next room was laughing. The dog is waiting by the door when you come home. Making dinner next to the person you've loved for decades has a familiar rhythm. The voice of a child calling from the kitchen before they grew up and moved away.
For much of my life, I never thought to write these moments down. They felt temporary. Ordinary. They seemed like the background scenery of life. Then one day, you realize they weren’t just the background. They were the story. That realization can break your heart a little.
Maybe you're walking an aging dog and suddenly realize there will come a day when the leash hangs untouched by the door. Perhaps you're drying dishes while hearing your spouse move through the house, wondering how many thousands of ordinary evenings you've shared without fully appreciating them. Nothing dramatic is happening, and yet something inside you quietly whispers: Pay attention. This matters.
I think we miss much of our lives because people have taught us that significance should appear loud. We celebrate the extraordinary while overlooking the ordinary.
Yet when someone we love is gone, it’s rarely the grand moments we ache for. We miss how they stood at the sink. How they called our name from another room. How they fell asleep on the couch. How the dog leaned against our leg while we rinsed dishes after dinner, as if simply being near us was enough. Those are the details grief reaches for. Those details love refuses to let go of.
The tragedy of being human is that we rarely recognize what matters most until it has already become a memory. We spend years chasing significance while standing knee-deep in it.
Life is happening while coffee brews before sunrise; while someone asks how your day was and genuinely waits for the answer; while you comfort a frightened dog during a thunderstorm; and while you stay on the phone because you can hear sadness hiding in a friend's silence.
These moments feel ordinary because they happen so often. But frequency doesn’t make something meaningless. It makes it sacred. That’s why I wrote this book the way I did.
Not because bathing the dog or loading the dishwasher are remarkable events, but because they aren’t. Hidden in those moments are entire lifetimes of devotion, companionship, humor, grief, and love. I wanted to preserve the things most people overlook while searching for something bigger.
In many ways, this book is my own small act of defiance against forgetting. It’s a way of saying: This happened. This person was here. We loved each other like this.
Because one day, the cluttered kitchen table becomes sacred ground. One day, the voicemail you almost deleted becomes priceless. One day, you would give almost anything to relive a completely average Tuesday with someone you love.
Perhaps that’s the delicate balance of being human: we are living inside tomorrow's memories right now, usually without realizing it.
So, when those "almost insignificant" moments turn out to be worth preserving, I think they reveal something profound about a life well-lived.
The little things were never little.
They were the whole thing.
Listen to Episode 6 of My Friend Writes
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Website: Scott Lee Shafer
Buy Still Learning How to Adult: Misadventures in Everyday Life on Amazon