"Life is not measured by the number of breaths...", is it?

"Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take,

but by the moments that take our breath away."

I looked up the author of that quote and apparently, other than Will Smith in Hitch, no one really knows who said it. Good! 'Cause honestly, while I understand the point of whomever wrote it, there's something that bothers me about it. I've been thinking about it and I think I might have gotten it down to two things:

1. Measuring life? I happen to think like John Eldredge in his book Epic that: "Life doesn't come to us like a math problem. It comes to us the way that a story does, scene by scene." Trying to measure a story, makes no sense. --50 moments that took your breath away, 49 that didn't, I win!-- really? I just don't think it works out that way. Life unfolds, it's dynamic, it cannot be categorized in numbers, I feel that it's more a scene by scene deal; page by page, like a book. It includes the moments that take your breath away, but it also has those moments where you feel like you're just breathing, and even those when you can hardly breathe; life is all of that and more. 

That takes me to my next point,

2. Each moment counts. Okay, we may not be particularly fond of mourning, or being sick; we may not like routine, we may be even a bit scared of those moments when we need to make a decision, take a risk; hardly breathing; but I find that those carry life as well, that many times, those moments are the ones that take us to the next breath-taking instant. It all counts, it's all part of the story. 

Yeah, I cherish the moments that take my breath away, but I feel that if I set my heart to make it all count, it I make myself aware of the beauty of each moment, then the sense of awe of God's hand in all of it increases, and I actually gain more breath-taking moments, than if I'm just surviving the times in between. Now I'm not at all saying that sickness or bad things are God's will, but simply that if we see all of life from the point of view that there are no problems, but only opportunities for God to show up, then each circumstance becomes more significant, there are no dull times. Jesus came to give us life abundant, as the Message would put it, He came to give us "real and eternal life, more and better life than they ever dreamed of." Make each moment count, He's rooting for you.