I saw this quote somewhere years ago. I don’t remember where. I don’t remember who said it. I only remember that it stayed with me.

For a long time, I carried a slightly blurred version of it in my head. Recently, close to the end of the year, I saw it again. This time, clearly. It was on my computer screen, quietly waiting for me. And it stopped me.

“Life is not the amount of breaths you take.
It’s the moments that take your breath away.”

I’ve read countless quotes over the years. Most pass through without leaving much behind. This one didn’t. And seeing it again now, at this moment in my life, felt like an invitation to pause. To look back. To remember.

Because there are moments in life that don’t ask for analysis. They don’t ask for explanation or meaning-making. They simply arrive. And when they do, time does something strange. It slows down. Or it disappears altogether.

I’ve experienced that kind of moment five times.

Each time, for the same reason.

The birth of my children.

I remember the rooms vividly. The smell of disinfectant mixed with anticipation. The quiet efficiency of nurses moving in and out. The steady rhythm of machines in the background. And then, suddenly, everything else fades.

There is a moment, right before it happens, when the world narrows. Conversations stop. Thoughts fall away. You are no longer planning or managing or thinking ahead. You are simply there.

Present in a way that is rare in adult life.

When my first daughter was born, I thought I understood what was happening. I didn’t. I was overwhelmed by a feeling I couldn’t name. Joy, yes. Relief, yes. But also something deeper. A kind of humility. As if life itself had leaned in and whispered, pay attention.

This matters.

The second time, my first son, I thought I would be more prepared. I wasn’t. Different child. Different energy. Same breathless moment. That first cry. That first movement. That instant recognition that nothing would ever be the same again.

By the third, fourth, and fifth time, you might expect the experience to soften. To become familiar. It didn’t. Each time, the same stillness. The same sense that the universe had pressed pause just long enough for me to notice what really counts.

In those moments, no one cares about productivity. No one asks about goals, deadlines, or plans. No one measures success. There is no future to optimize and no past to fix. There is only now.

A small human being arriving into the world.

I’ve spent much of my professional life thinking about performance, leadership, family systems, and success. I work with people who are driven, thoughtful, and ambitious. People who want to build something that lasts. And yet, again and again, the conversations eventually return to the same place.

What actually matters?

We live in a culture that teaches us to count breaths. To measure life in milestones, achievements, accumulation. We track time, optimize calendars, and fill our days with movement. But movement is not the same as meaning.

The moments that take your breath away cannot be scheduled.

They don’t show up on your to-do list. They don’t respond to effort or control. They arrive when they arrive. And when they do, they ask something of us.

Presence.

Not the kind of presence we talk about in workshops or mindfulness apps. The real kind. The kind where your mind has nowhere else to go. Where your body knows, before your thoughts do, that this is important.

I’ve seen this same breathless quality in other moments too. Standing at a hospital bedside. Receiving news that changes everything. Watching someone you love step into their own strength. Sitting in silence after a long conversation that finally touched the truth.

But the births of my children remain the clearest examples.

They taught me something that no book or framework ever could.

Life is not lived evenly.

It is not a smooth line of equal moments strung together. It is a series of peaks and valleys, with a few moments that rise above everything else. Moments that anchor us. Moments we return to, consciously or unconsciously, when life becomes noisy or confusing.

As the year comes to a close, many of us are reflecting. On what we accomplished. On what we didn’t. On what we want next year to look like. Those reflections have their place. But they are incomplete if we don’t also ask a quieter question.

When did I lose my breath this year?

Not from exhaustion. Not from stress. But from awe. From love. From being fully alive in a way that needed no explanation.

Those moments are not always dramatic. Sometimes they are small. A look. A sentence. A shared silence. But they leave a mark.

I don’t remember how many breaths I took the day each of my children was born. I don’t remember the hour or the sequence of events in detail. But I remember the feeling.

The stillness.
The weight of responsibility and wonder.
The sense that life had just expanded in ways I would spend years trying to understand.

That is what I wish for you as this year closes.

Not more breaths.
But more moments that take them away.

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