This Fall, Focus on Small

Pop Quiz:  What is going to make you feel better?  

1. Scrolling social media and getting sucked into the latest invitation to feel outraged?

Or

Going for a walk with a friend?

2. Moping around because your amazing trip to (fill in cool location here _______) was cancelled?

Or

Exploring something within 2 hours driving distance of your house?

3. Getting enraged because your ridiculous school district has decided to change schedules, again?

Or

Taking the time to prepare a fresh, yummy dinner?

I’m guessing for each question, you understand that choosing the second option for each of the above questions is going to feel better than choosing the first option. Second option rules!  Go option B!  

This week, I have gotten multiple invitations to choose option B:  Social media this week has been particularly negative, polarized and depressing.  My international trip, planned over the past 2 years was supposed to leave on September 26, 2020, but instead is cancelled.  My daughter’s school announced on Sunday that classes this week were at totally different days and times.  (10:20 is one of her dismissal times!  How is anyone supposed to work?!).  

Life is like the above quiz:  are you going to take option A or option B?  

If you notice, option B is smaller each time than option A.  More personal, more connected, more hands-on, more physical, more do-able.  This fall, choose small.  Choose the walk, the focus on one good meal, go to bed a half-hour earlier, call one person, snuggle your dog, cat, or fellow human.  Smaller, more accessible actions that aren’t so fancy are likely to be our best choices at the moment.  All the big stuff is feeling very, very big.  And we are but one person in the face of these big things.  We can choose to be upset, hopeless, frustrated and outraged, or we can notice these feelings and act in small ways that are congruent with who we want to be.  Small actions, repeated over time, can make a surprisingly big difference, to ourselves, in our relationships and even in our larger world. 

Small but mighty, option B!