It's a Small Thing - or - Is It?
I was recently reminded of an event that took place last winter during a snowstorm here in New England that dumped about 16 inches of snow. As I awoke that morning I checked outside and saw that, while I could make it out of the driveway, the sidewalk clearly needed shoveling and salted.
Donning my trusty Carhartt coat, wool beanie and gloves I made my way outside with the dogs. They played in the snow, reveling in the cold and chasing each other around the yard while I stopped to enjoy the quiet of the morning at 4:30 AM. There is something about big flakes of snow falling past a streetlight, the quietness that a new snowfall brings, and the sheer beauty of it all that calms me. It is a blanket of newness that cleanses everything in pure white. I only had a short time to enjoy the calm before I had to get to the shoveling part. I was headed out in an hour or so from my home in Burlington, Vermont to Manchester, New Hampshire for a business meeting. While the 3-hour drive is normally easy and enjoyable, I wasn’t sure what the weather would bring and didn’t want to be late.
The walk was shoveled and I put down the salt to melt some of the underlying ice that lingered. Kissing Jeen goodbye I made my way out of our subdivision and down Interstate 89 South towards New Hampshire. Shortly after getting on the freeway as I was pressing on the gas pedal I noticed something in my right boot. I felt it drop from my toe and lodge itself under the heel of my foot. It felt like a very small pebble and while it wasn’t painful, it was clearly annoying. Every time I went from the gas pedal to the brake I could feel it pressing against my foot.
This small, seemingly inconsequential little pebble occupied a disproportionate amount of the next hour and a half of my life. While I did other things as I drove: made telephone calls (hands-free of course), listened to a great podcast by Morgan Snyder, and tried to enjoy the beauty of the Vermont scenery, it always came back to that silly pebble. Like I mentioned earlier, it wasn’t painful but it was a constant that distracted me from enjoying the drive fully.
I got to a large rest area off the Interstate and couldn’t wait to get my boot off and rid myself of that silly annoyance. Out it dropped – much smaller than I anticipated for all the trouble it brought. As I picked it up I noticed it was a small piece of rock salt – it obviously fell into my boot while I was throwing salt down earlier that morning.
I couldn’t get that little piece of rock salt, and the annoyance it brought, out of my mind throughout the morning - and then it came to me. My life is FILLED with things like this. Minor little things that don’t cause my life to come crashing down, but unnecessarily occupy my thoughts and time. Little nagging things like: A comment from a loved-one or friend that stung, a relationship that has become strained, things at work, a lingering physical issue, returning feelings of doubt or inadequacy, etc. None of them important enough by themselves to stop and deal with directly, but the aggregate of them all can be so distracting it can definitely cause me to be off my game. At my age, one would have thought I’d be passed all that by now and have a sophisticated and much better “little stuff doesn’t matter, why are you getting your underwear in a knot about this” radar. But, at least I was aware of it now. Here’s the dilemma that you and I both face when we gain insight: Now that I know about it, what am I going to DO about it? I’ve decided that unless it’s a bona fide big deal, I am not going to waste more than a New York second on it. Life is far too short, bigger things matter, I should be focusing my energy, talents, and time changing my life and helping those around me, rather than expending energy on something that 6-months from now I won’t even remember. Are those things frustrating – absolutely! Do they have the potential to bring far more pain short-term than their size should allow – you bet! Are they worth it? Nope – not this time, not any time…
Funny how a simple small piece of rock salt, at just the right time, provided the catalyst for me to realize how much time and energy I waste dealing with the small stuff. What’s your “rock-salt”? Shake out your boot, recognize it for what it is and move on friend – move on indeed…