I’m the most unobservant person you’ll ever meet. It’s not that I’m unaware of my surroundings, but sometimes I’ll just tune everything out and go into my own little world. It’s just something I do. This led me to the disturbing question: Am I too oblivious to witness something that could change my outlook on humanity?

This idea terrifies me. I never really gave it much thought until I was given this assignment about an observation that affected me. This caused me to revisit my entire life to see if any events I witnessed really impacted me. I know for certain that I’ve seen things, like when I walked by a stranger’s wedding on the beach in Cuba, or when I saw a dad yelling at his daughter at a concert for going off by herself for two hours. While I have seen things, none have had a lasting impact on me, or affected me enough to write even a page about. I usually just watch it happen for two minutes, and then go off to my own business.

When thinking of something to write about for this assignment, I was contemplating making up a story of something I witnessed, when a) I didn’t witness it, and b) it didn’t really happen. I do have the piece written, but it wouldn’t have felt right to hand it in when, in reality, it didn’t happen. It was a story of how I witnessed a dancer giving her dance shoes to a competitor at a cut-throat dance competition. Pretty good stuff, right? Then I go into this whole bullshit story of how it restored my faith in the dance world by seeing that small action. I didn’t want to hand it in because it’s not true, and there’s no way I’d be able to notice that at a busy dance competition when I have my own problems to worry about.

I’m sure in my life I’ve probably witnessed something where, if I was paying attention, it would’ve stuck with me forever and given me that nice, happy feeling right in my heart. This assignment got me thinking that maybe, once in a while I should pay more attention to what’s going on around me. Who knows, I might witness something life-changing. I promise you when that happens, even if it’s 10 years from now, I’ll redo this entire assignment and hand it back in. I can’t go on in life constantly tuning out the world, that’s when you’ll miss all the good stuff. And, apparently, even the smallest things that can make the biggest impact in your life.