Why Smallness Matters
Allow me to share this Quora.com post by Bruktawit Abebaw: A WOMAN TAPPED ME ON THE SHOULDER WHILE WAITING IN THE CHECKOUT LINE AT COSTCO. SHE SAID, 'EXCUSE ME, YOUR HAIR IS ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL'. I DON'T KNOW WHY BUT SOMETIMES THESE WAVES HIT ME. I CAUGHT A LUMP N MY THROAT, MY EYES SWELLED AND INSTEAD OF JUST SAYING 'THANK YOU', I SAID INSTEAD 'I DON'T KNOW IF YOU KNOW MUCH THAT MEANS TO ME. A FEW YEARS AGO, I WAS GOING THROUGH CHEMO AND KEPT PRAYING FOR IT TO GROW BACK BECAUSE THAT WOULD MEAN I'M LIVING CANCER-FREE AND THIS SUNDAY I'M CELEBRATING MY 5TH YEAR OF REMISSION. Indeed, Smallness Matters. WHO would expect that that casual remark meant a lot❗❗❗
YES, sometimes, the best way to remember the value of SMALL-SMALL things is to look for those random acts of kindness can do for others, even if it's nothing more than a casual remark like what transpired at the Costco queue. Let us NOT underestimate the power of delivering a meal to a sick friend, inviting a new co-worker to eat lunch with you [WHICH has become more of a ritual for me through the years because at that point in time WHEN someone is very new in the organization, being invited by the boss himself should at the very least reaffirm with the newbie that he made the right decision to board that shipπ§π§π§
I remember WHEN I had to initiate some minor renovations at home. I had about less than 10 workers WHO I witnessed working damn hard under the scorching sun. WHEN the clock was ticking towards noontime, I told them that I'll give each of them a 100-peso allowance for their lunch [which I'll dole out then for the next 2 weeks until all the civil works were done]. I knew then that the 100-pesos hardly dented my pocket BUT I was quite sure that it meant a lot for them, at least to get over the burden of spending for their daily lunches. It was the same sentiment I made it a habit of treating my new staff for lunch on his/her day-1 [which reminds me, my Dutch boss treated me for lunch on my day-1. The stark difference was that my boss treated me for lunch at his favorite bar [with girls dancing right at high-noon]!@#$%?
Oh Oh Oh, I observed this perennial 'show stopper' in us WHEREIN some of us [sometimes] would feel that pressure of BEING NOTICED. YES it is so easy to feel like we are being overlooked at home, at work OR even within our community WHEN we are into those SMALL-SMALL things we're doing in GOOD FAITH because let's admit it, they are NOT usually those glamorous things in the first place. And it can feel more gratifying to be the loudest voice in the room BUT we need to remember that just because a voice is the loudest DOESN'T mean it's the one making the biggest difference✅✅✅Our takeaway: Can we SLOW DOWN? BUT hey, our daily lives seem to move damn fast, right? We rush from meeting to meeting. Even WHEN most of us got locked-down by the recent pandemic, the frenetic back-to-back Zoom calls and meetings were back-breaking to say the least. BUT I realized that [that] frenetic pace of our lives is one of the very major culprits WHY many of us seem to be missing out those little-little things, those SMALL-SMALL stuff in life [which to others would mean heaven and earth all rolled into one]. For brevity, one option we can consider when SMALLNESS MATTERS is to practice gratitude, dudeπππ