There is so much that’s said about the little things. When they’re good, they’re what makes life. They are the common characters in quotes of the wise – that if you focus on the details, the day-by-day, the easily-overlooked – that they will accumulate into a life of true purpose and contentment. But if the things are bad, the same common wisdom says – fuck em. Don’t sweat the small stuff. The petty. The minutia is suddenly your Achilles heel, what keeps you from focusing on the bigger picture.
So how am I supposed to tell the difference between the good little things that are supposed to be the spice of my life, and the bad little things, which I’m supposed to ignore or else die of a thousand papercuts? I ask this because I spend a good portion of my meditation on the smallest of things. Today, it was how we’re going to get rid of our futon when we move. I opened my eyes without a solution to my quandary, but I did pick up the guilt of all the heavy ills of the world that I won’t spend even a fraction of a moment thinking about.
I realize that, despite all of our intelligence, humans are still pretty bad at seeing things at scale. I can tell that the tiny building is actually just distant, but when a meaningless task has a deadline quickly approaching, it can suddenly seem gigantic. I can’t remember most of the things that I’ve lost sleep over. Yet, there continues to be vast, existential things that I feel that I could, should spend more time investigating.
Regardless of whether all these little things are assigned with positive or negative meaning, what we all seem to agree on is that they can ultimately build to something of great consequence. Abstract but ubiquitous notions like wasting time and make it all count come to mind – they all point to this looming consequence of being on one’s deathbed and concluding that life was squandered.
There’s no doubt that I’ve spent loads (if not the majority) of my time on things of zero consequence or impact, whether good or bad. The number of shitty shows I’ve watched, the crushes I obsessed over but can’t remember the names of, the assignments and tasks that I stayed up late mulling over only to forget them once delivered. And all the posts…so many posts. But maybe the point is to not get marred down in assigning value to it all, to be in awe that, after all the little things, we still are able to scrape together the remaining time and energy to have blips of epicness. The big things that we each only have room for a few of.