All the Small Things
If you are back here after reading my first post, welcome back! I am already deeply grateful for you. Not only did you take the time to come back for more, but on some level something that I said resonated with you, and that’s a beautiful thing. After all, we are so much more alike than we are different.
In my first post, I started out talking about patience. The patience it took me to get where I am today, the patience it took me to post anything at all, the patience to know I’m nowhere near where I want to be, and the acceptance that with everyday I am moving a bit closer. The biggest lesson I learned when being dedicated to having patience, is to keep an eye on the small things. Small things count in a big way. I am on so many journeys in my life right now - my career, loving and accepting myself, trying to being the best human I can be, treating my body with respect, and being open and kind to my spiritual self and others. Each journey requires me to take small steps every single day in order to move closer to making my dreams a reality.
A deeply personal journey I am currently on is one with my weight, one which I struggled with since I was a little girl, and to be honest I still struggle with today. When I think of who I know myself to be and the way my body has changed over the last few years, it has been a struggle for me to accept myself. It has been a struggle to look in the mirror, to want to take a photo, to even think of buying new clothes. Somewhere along the way I lost myself. I allowed myself to get consumed in a job that I hated, and from there I turned into this person who stopped caring altogether. I didn’t need patience, I had instant gratification at my beck and call. Night after night I would sit in my apartment in Brooklyn, shoveling in pad thai and wonder why I was so deeply unhappy. Never did I stop and truly examine myself or my actions. I didn’t take ownership. I put on a big ‘whatever’ front and did as I pleased, not concerned with consequence or how my future self would feel. I robbed myself of the chance to see any small changes make a any sort of difference.
You can’t make progress or a change when you are doing the same thing everyday and expecting to feel different. That my friend, is insanity. So while I was wallowing in my comfort zone with flowy dresses and big comfy sweaters, day after day of sitting in my apartment, secretly being happy with cancelled plans or that “too cold to go outside weather”, I lost the meaning of patience. I let every small chance, every moment of opportunity, be taken over with this mindset that I let control me, rather than me have control over it.
The small things - making your bed every morning, hugging your loved ones, choosing a healthy meal over one that you know won’t make you feel good, going for that 30 minute walk, smiling at the stranger walking down the street - doing the small things means we are taking the necessary steps toward our goals. The small things are what make up the big things in life that we want to accomplish. They are tiny victories that build us up, that move us forward, that remind us, “YES WE CAN.”
The small things are our dreams in action.
