The Show I Almost Missed
What fireworks teach us about enough
Fireworks are one of the few experiences that ask for all of you.
Your eyes track the light.
Your ears brace for the sound.
Your chest feels the vibration before you can name it.
They don’t reward partial attention, and you can’t multitask them.
The moment you try to capture them, something essential disappears.
The Night I Almost Missed Everything
Almost a decade ago, I traveled to Montreal to see L'International des Feux Loto-Québec, the world's largest fireworks competition.
Teams from across the globe compete to create the best show on earth.
That year’s theme was “Gunpowder and Greasepaint.”
Fireworks meet theater.
My ticket happened to be for England’s performance.
The one that would end up winning the entire competition.
As the first explosion lit up the sky to the overture from Phantom of the Opera, I did what I always do:
I pulled out my phone. Framed the shot. Checked the angle.
I needed to make sure I was getting this.
But the sound on my screen was flat.
The colors looked wrong, and the scale made no sense.
I kept filming anyway.
Because if I didn’t capture it, what proof would I have that this happened?
Then, somewhere around the third song, something in me broke.
I put the phone down.
And for the first time all night, I actually watched.
The music swelled. The sky exploded in patterns I’d never seen.
Colors layering on colors, explosions perfectly timed to every crescendo.
Hundreds of thousands of people around the city gasped in unison.
By the time “Come What May” from Moulin Rouge began the grand finale, I was crying.
Not performing emotion. Not thinking about how to describe it later.
Just…present. Completely and devastatingly present.
It was the most beautiful show I’d ever seen.
And I have almost no proof it happened.
Just the memory of what it felt like to finally stop trying to keep it.
Enough Works the Same Way
Enoughness behaves like fireworks.
You feel it briefly in a moment of alignment, relief, or certainty.
And then, almost immediately, the urge arrives:
How do I make this last?
How do I prove this wasn’t a fluke?
How do I hold onto it?
That’s when it slips away.
Not because it wasn’t real, but because enough can’t survive being captured.
Presence Without Proof
Fireworks don’t ask you to improve them.
They don’t need interpretation or commentary.
They don’t care if anyone else sees what you see.
They ask only one thing: Are you here?
Enough asks the same.
Not: Did you optimize this? Did you share it? Did you pull something useful from it?
Just: Did you notice it while it was happening?
Where the Compass Points
If you bring the Compass to a moment like this, it doesn’t point forward.
It points down into your body.
Exhale: Let go of the need to hold on.
Notice: This is happening now.
Honor What’s Yours: This moment doesn’t need witnesses.
Enough is not something you save for later.
It’s something you notice while it’s happening.
Why This is Hard
We’ve been trained to treat experience as raw material.
Joy becomes content. Rest becomes recovery. Awe becomes evidence that we’re doing life “right.”
This is scarcity thinking in its purest form.
Scarcity says: if you can’t keep it, it doesn’t count. Document it, optimize it, extract value from it, or it was wasted.
Sufficiency says: the value was in the experiencing. You don’t need to keep it to prove it mattered.
Fireworks are pure sufficiency.
They explode, they’re beautiful, they’re gone.
And they were enough.
But fireworks also remind us there is another way to live.
A way where meaning doesn’t accumulate. Where beauty doesn’t compound. Where value doesn’t depend on permanence.
Sometimes the most honest response is simply to look up and let it go.
A Small Practice
The next time something feels fleeting but good, don’t reach for proof.
This could be a laugh, a quiet evening, or a sense of rightness.
Stay with it. Let it pass.
Resist the urge to turn it into something useful.
Tell yourself:
This doesn’t need to last to be enough.
That’s the practice.
That’s the remembering.
Exhale.
P.S. When was the last time you experienced something fully without trying to capture it? What did that feel like?