It was one of those summer days in downtown Rochester, New York.
You know the kind. It was so hot outside you could fry an egg.
I was doing my usual loop—head down, moving fast, listening to podcasts with my earbuds in—trying to get where I was going without melting.
That's when I saw it. A sticker on a bench. It said, "You are here."
Now, maybe someone slapped it on there yesterday, or maybe it's been there for years waiting for me to finally look up. I’ll never know.
I’ve passed that bench at least 50 times and never noticed it. Not once.
And that’s what got me.
How much of life do we miss because we’re in a hurry? We think we know the same story, the same streets, same buildings, same sidewalks, same old everything.
But maybe the story changed, and we weren’t paying attention.
That sticker wasn’t loud. It wasn’t new. It was there, waiting.
In the practice, the real work is to stay awake to the ordinary. To slow down long enough to see what’s been quietly waiting for us all along.
So what do you think? What’s something you’ve walked by a hundred times and finally saw?
Let me know in the comments, and check out more at jamesabrown.net.
On that note, I’m James A. Brown.
And as always, be well.
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