One thing that makes life so much more pleasant is to avoid making things more significant than they need to be. Some people are experts at reading undue importance into decisions, timing, and choices. They ask questions such as these: “Why did she decide to do X this year when last year she turned down Y which was very similar? What does this mean??”

Something I saw a few days ago in the Arts section of The New York Times gave me a fascinating reminder that assigning importance to that decision or this timing may be completely irrelevant.

The story was about Maestro Riccardo Muti. Maestro Muti had just announced that he would become the musical director of The Chicago Symphony Orchestra. This was big news in the music world. The Times put it like this: “In a classical music world of diminishing grandeur, the orchestra has hired one of the last lions of podium glamour…” Mr. Muti had been music director of the Philadelphia Orchestra from 1980-1992. He most recently had been music director at the Teatro Alla Scala in Milan until he resigned in 2005.

Now here is the part that instructs us about being careful about assigning significance to a particular choice. It seems that another orchestra, The New York Philharmonic, had previously tried to lure Mr. Muti at least once, or perhaps even twice, to be their director. Muti had been a regular and popular guest conductor with the New York Philharmonic in the past.

So now Maestro Muti had accepted the position with the Chicago orchestra when he hadn’t accepted the position earlier with the New York orchestra. Did Mr. Muti’s choosing Chicago “mean something” in relation to his not having chosen New York earlier?

Here is how Ricardo Muti answered that question:

“I thought it was time for me to be absolutely free, like the birds in the air. Birds go around and they enjoy their happiness, their freedom. But sometimes it can happen they find a tree, and they like to stop on a tree, and they didn’t know about the tree before. It doesn’t mean one tree is better than another tree. It just happens at the right moment in life.”

So there we are.

No big significance to the decision. No rejection of New York and embrace of Chicago. Just freedom with no commitments in one moment. Then a particular opportunity at a particular time. Leading to a choice in this present.

“But sometimes it can happen the birds find a tree, and they like to stop on a tree, and they didn’t know about the tree before. It doesn’t mean one tree is better than another tree. It just happens at the right moment in life.”

So perhaps I said last year when someone suggested a trip to Canada that I thought I wouldn’t go…then this year I turn around and go to Canada. Rejection of last year’s invitation? Preference of this year’s invitation? No, perhaps something as simple as life’s being different this year, my having seen a photograph that drew me this year, or things changing around me so that more space exists in my life this year. Just a bird stopping on this particular tree. Nothing more significant than that.

Note about the Red Bird in Tree art pictured above: this card is available at the Bonbi Forest Indie Emporium, home to a wonderland of handmade and independently designed goods from artists, crafters and designers from around the world. Go to bonbiforest.com and click Paper Goods.