Cherish the small things
“Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together."
Vincent van GoghI believe that 22 hours of the day are just the motions necessary to fill the time, 1 hour is filled with things that can break you and 1 hour provides the motivation necessary make it through the rest of the day.
I am going to concentrate on just the 2 latter hours: 1 hour of obstacles and 1 hour of “pick me ups.” These 2 hours don’t come in 1 hour blocks; they are broken into chunks of small minutes that are sprinkled throughout the day, creating a roller coaster of highs and lows. Granted, we are so accustomed to these peaks and valleys that it just seems like our day goes on without them, but in reality, they are there.
These are what I call “the small things,” and for simplicity sake, I am going to break them into positive small things (PST) and negative small things (NST).
I consider myself a big picture thinker. There isn’t a ton of stuff that will get me down or throw me for a loop because I constantly try to take a step back and think about what something means to my future. Constantly managing my time and emotions and deciding if things are worth the effort. I have always evaluated life situations by how they impact the expectations I have for my future and reacted accordingly.
In years past, I feel like I have not accurately assessed these situations and over-compensated by dismissing almost all of the small things as NST. I limited my opportunities and experiences simply because I didn’t feel like the emotional/physical effort necessary was not justified by the best possible outcome.
About a year ago, I started to come up with a theory to change this. I decided I would start “balancing the small things” better and started concentrating my life around PST. I wanted to surround myself with those small things that pick you up when you need motivation, which allow you to continue on when you have nothing left. My personal goal was to change that 1 hour of PST into 4 hours each day. I joined personal training sessions, I changed my eating habits, I started taking vocal lessons, I started running, and I started reading more, etc.
Essentially, what I had attempted to do was increase the number of hours I had vested into PST, therefore shifting the balance of positive energy in my life. And it worked! I was feeling great about myself, my life and where it was heading.
But here is the thing: all of these things were no longer small parts of my life, they were no longer “small things” and eventually, concentrating on them wasn’t giving me the same joy that it was when I first started this little project of mine. Now, I have made some life changes that I hope I never lose, but somehow my experiment went wrong.
So here is what I learned: There will always be NST and PST and you cannot increase time to a certain PST in an attempt to become happier, because it will naturally no longer be a small thing and will turn into one of the thousands of motions throughout your day.
Instead, focus your energy on those PST. Appreciate them. Really. Take the time to recognize those things and concentrate your emotions on them. Your frame of mind can be more powerful than you can imagine.
I am going to give you guys a very simple, silly example of exactly what I mean.
I work on the 22nd floor of a 48 floor building which houses 3 different elevator banks. My elevator bank goes from 21 to 36 so, when I get on the elevator, there is only one possible stop prior to me getting to my floor when going up or to the lobby when going down. Since 21 is the reception desk, more often than not, someone goes to 21, so I always have to wait an extra 5 seconds in the elevator to get to my floor. BUT, sometimes, just sometimes, no one pushes 21. Amazing, I go straight to my destination! (I told you this is a silly example.) But let’s think, if one day the 21st floor went under construction and no one was allowed on that floor, I would be guaranteed to never have to waste my 5 precious seconds waiting for people to get on and off the elevator. And sure, it would be nice, but it wouldn’t be anything special, it would just become another motion in my day.
The point is, I can appreciate the times that I do get to go straight to 22 but if I increased that frequency, it would ruin the experience. Not to say it wouldn’t make my life easier or better, it just would no longer be a PST that I can turn to to give me little sparks of comfort and joy.
From all that I have learned, happiness is not something we can buy or force, it is simply a positive mindset reinforced by the great idiosyncrasies in our life.