I think we tend to see our lives as boring, hum-drum prairies interspersed with a series of mountainous “big moments.” These “big moments” consist of whatever trial or triumph we happen to be facing at the time, often severely inflated and over-dramatized in our minds. That is just how we naturally think. We focus on these “big moments” while ignoring the boredom in between. When we come to a perceived “big moment,” we lose perspective, forgetting about more difficult storms we have weathered and certainly forgetting about more difficult things that others have survived. “Yes, I know Ernest Shackleton and his men were stranded in Antarctica, but at least they didn’t have to worry about not getting enough ‘likes’ on their birth announcement videos!” Of course, sometimes we do go through difficult, dramatic, and truly monumental events, and I do not mean to take away from those moments. But most of the time, those moments in our lives that we feel could easily be dramatized into an opera couldn’t even make it as, well, a humorous essay. And it is the moments in between that really define us. For me (and I suspect many others), high school represents thousands of epic moments, points in my life that I thought were staggeringly important at the time but have since forgotten. And many moments that I didn’t even notice that had huge impacts on who I am. Sitting on my desk as I write is a reminder of these moments.

I should clarify that my high school experience was far from normal. I went to a tiny, ultra-conservative private Baptist high school. “How conservative was it?” you may ask. Well, I felt like a rebel because my parents allowed me to listen to rock music (though I was not allowed to do so on campus). Girls had to wear dresses or skirts that covered their knees. Boys could not wear blue jeans because they looked unprofessional. Think “Amish” but with less barn raisings. It was a weird environment. But it had a lot of positive impacts on my life. And it was the backdrop for many of the “big moments” of my young life as well as a whole lot of little moments which had longer-lasting effects.

By the end of my senior year, I had collected quite the list of moments. Thanks to the school being so small, I played varsity basketball and football despite having the physique of an overgrown asparagus spear (but with less muscle mass). After a few years of this, I admitted to myself that I hated organized sports and walked away from all of my positions as starting bench-warmer for my senior year. I discovered I loved history and had a knack for grammar (both of which are still prominent parts of my life, though I could not have predicted that in high school). I procrastinated on multiple projects (a weakness I still intend to get around to addressing at some point). I won humor competitions (seriously). I experienced my first real dating relationship, and learned how bad a break-up could feel. High school was busy, exciting, painful, and full of highs and lows. Prom was going to be a “big moment” celebrating all of those previous “big moments.”

Wait, I forgot to tell you, we didn’t have prom. Yeah, we weren’t allowed to dance. So “prom” in the traditional sense would have been, well, quiet. I mean, maybe someone would have played a hymn on a clarinet, but then I might have started swaying to the music and been tossed out as a “charismatic.” Instead of prom, we had a Junior-Senior Banquet. The name does a lot of the explaining for me: the junior class (all 20 or so of them) organized a formal dinner in honor of the senior class (all 20 or so of us). Our principal was insistent that the banquet was its own tradition and NOT our version of prom, but I don’t think anyone actually believed him. There were some fun components. The juniors would make humorous predictions about what the seniors would do after graduation, and the seniors would “will” things like stinky athletic socks to the juniors. Hardly raucous, but still fun. And less likely to result in unexpected pregnancies.

Another component of the banquet was that the juniors would give the seniors a small gift of some kind. I think our class gave picture frames to the class ahead of us. The class behind us gave us “mint cups.” The “mint cups” were small glasses engraved with the name of our school and our graduation year. When we arrived at our tables that night, the “mint cups” were already sitting at our places, full of decorative, pastel-colored mints. Despite the disguise, we recognized what these “mint cups” were. The juniors had managed, whether by devious ingenuity or unbelievable cluelessness, to give a bunch of Baptist 18-year-olds . . . commemorative shot glasses. The same principal who insisted that the banquet was not our version of prom also insisted that these were “mint cups” and not shot glasses. Meanwhile, one of the juniors confirmed that the box had indeed said “shot glass.” It wasn’t hard to figure out whom to believe. If the Junior-Senior Banquet was a “big moment,” then getting a shot glass with the name of our Baptist high school emblazoned proudly across it was surely the greatest joke of our entire lives.

For the record, I am not endorsing underage drinking. For my part, the strongest drink I remember imbibing that night was Dr Pepper. It wasn’t that we immediately wanted to liberate the “mint cups” to fulfill their true purposes. To us, it was just plain funny, a sort of last laugh at the rules enforced upon us and the technicalities we sometimes used to get around them.

It would be a long time before I ever used my “mint cup” properly. But I did keep it. In fact, it is the only shot glass I own (beer is my go-to alcoholic beverage, and it comes with its own bottle). The “mint cup” is a funny reminder of a different time, a time which now feels like something that happened to someone else. As if high school happened to a different version of me who then told the “me” me about it. But the “mint cup” reminds me that, no, it wasn’t a dream; it actually happened. I experienced those victories. I made those mistakes. And even if I don’t remember all of them, they all contributed to the person that I am today.

The “mint cup” reminds me that important things did happen in high school. But it also reminds me of my inability to see the big picture. High school contained some important moments and decisions, but many of the moments that I thought were so monumental when I was living through them weren’t. My inability to play football did not define my coolness; and even if it did, it was to a bunch of people with whom I have virtually no contact today. Meanwhile, some of the biggest moments probably slipped by unnoticed, quietly contributing, in good ways and bad, to who I am. Trying to get the commas right on my English papers has fed into trying to get the commas right on contracts and court documents in my career. And my procrastination on my science projects foreshadowed my struggles with long-term work assignments. It might be cliche, but so often it is the little moments and not the big ones that define us.

So . . . get some perspective: whatever “big moment” you are facing is probably not the biggest, most dramatic thing you have ever faced. Or will ever face. And remember that the small moments matter. Sometimes more than the big ones.

So raise your commemorative “mint cup” to the moments that define us, big and little.