Small Things

What do you do with the small things in life? Do you handle them with care? Are you a good steward of them even when no one is looking? Do you think of them as incremental building blocks of the future? The answers to these questions reveal your character.

Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much.

Whether you realize it or not, someone is watching.

And listening.

To everything you say and do.

And each small thing is a building block that you are either putting up or tearing down.

If you don’t like something about your character, you can change it. One small step at a time, you can alter your mind and behavior. It won’t happen overnight, but it’s possible with desire, persistence and resilience. Block by block.

Why is resilience important? Because you’ll have set backs, and you’ll need to press on. These set backs will require you to forgive others or yourself and drive forward. Everyone needs to forgive. Everyone needs to be forgiven.

So what are some examples of the small things?

• Daily decisions where you have to chose between right and wrong
  • You notice that when buying lunch, you were given more change than you should have received. There’s an extra $20. Do you keep it?
  • When doing your expense report for work, you could fabricate an item and get away with it because you feel the “company” owes you and can absorb it. Do you do it?
  • On your commute home after a long day at work, you get cut off by someone driving aggressively and distracted by their cell phone. Do you get angry, cuss and flip them the bird?
  • You have the opportunity to connect with a woman on Facebook. Your trusting wife doesn’t know her and would not suspect anything inappropriate. You just met the woman through a vendor’s social event at work and find her attractive. Do you do it? Do you tell your wife?
• Daily moments where you can be thoughtful and serve others
  • After a lunch meeting, pack up the left overs to give to a homeless person on the walk back to your office.
  • Upon witnessing someone dropping all of their papers, which are now blowing in the wind, help them recover everything.
  • When walking by a piece of trash on the ground, pick it up and throw it away.
  • Slow down and help the senior citizen cross the road.
  • When you see a veteran of our armed forces, thank them for their service.

If you want to be entrusted with more in life, then demonstrate you can do the right thing with the small things. Behave like someone is always watching and listening.

Because someone is.