Some regrets don’t hit you all at once. They seep in at the corners of your life, at night or on a long drive, until they become a refrain. Those are the worst regrets of all.

I was living in a bubble, and it burst on May 9, 2022. It was the middle of the afternoon. As my partner Vanessa and I approached a major intersection, a blue car accelerated, ran the red light, and T-boned a black truck directly in front of us.

BOOM! The blue car’s hood crumbled like an accordion to absorb the impact. Within seconds, its front end was completely smashed, and its windows were broken. Then, everything went out of focus, except for what I needed to do—assess the scene for safety, check on the drivers of the blue car and black truck, and call 911. Nothing else mattered—I felt a heightened sense of purpose.

I had always focused on one macro moment after another—the next mountain to climb or business to start. I hadn’t spent any time appreciating the micro-moments—life in between the macros. I’d been living in a macro-moment bubble.

The accident awakened a desire to paint a complete picture of who I wanted to be and how I wanted to approach my life. This is my story of learning how to value the in-between and prioritize consciously living in the micro.