So it is always the trivial things that sneak up in the middle of the night and kill you in your sleep. Sometimes literally. These trivial things that we do, day in and day out, have a tendency to define who we are. Think this through for a minute. The little things are who you are not the big things. You see this is a paradoxical problem. We define our lives by the big events. I am married, father of 3, was a college professor, technology executive, etc. We think about the big events that happened to us. I completely my first marathon, I got a new job and that sort of things. The big events are what show up in our timeline, milestones along the way so to speak.
However, the big things have little to do with who we are. The little things define us. I was at the gas station and I saw an elderly man hold the door open for one of the employees that was wheeling in a cart of supplies. That same man gave up his spot in line to someone that seemed in a hurry. He greeted the person at the cash register, asked about her well being and seemed to really care about the answer. He gave a dollar to the St. Jude collection jar and on his way out gave some change to the man huddled in the corner, begging for scraps. I did not need to know anything about the big things in this man’s life to know who he was. The little things just came out.
When you go about your day, you do a bunch of little things all the time. When you talk to people you say certain things, greet them in a certain way. You have habits that you do, good or bad. It is all these accumulated things that really make up who you are and the results that you are getting. So if you want to improve anything in your life, take a look at the trivial things. It is always the small things that contribute to your success or failure.
Guy Reams
