The Smallest Things

It is rarely the big decisions that affect us. It is, more often than not, the little ones.

We sit there sweating over the list of pros and cons, about whether we should live in the country or the city, buy the Apple or the PC, take this job or that one. We fret, and agonize, and come to terms with what we think, and then fret some more, and change our minds, and then, finally, we take a big deep breath and come downstairs one morning and announce what we are going to do. And we think it is so big, and important, and monumental, and earth-shattering. And it isn’t. Not one little bit. Everything changes and then - nothing changes.

It is never the move to the country or the decision to have kids that change everything. It is the dinner parties. The little things that you didn’t think twice about. It is the girl you sit beside on the bus without even noticing - the bus ride you took on a whim.

The big things, it turns out, are in the small things - the ones you can neither prepare for nor plan.

And what should we do about that? Nothing, it seems. Mostly, I think, it means we should relax and go with the flow or, better, with our hears. Our hearts know the way, and the trick, it seems, is to follow our hearts. Because if we do, everything will work out all right in the end. And if it doesn’t? Well, you know the answer to that. That just means it’s not the end.

("Small Decisions," Stuart McLean)

Finding comfort in these words as my life tiptoes towards massive change. This is one of the things I love most about literature: it's unparalleled ability to speak directly to the circumstances of your life whatever they may be. The importance of small things should not be lost on me, a lover of all things tiny, like these bitty blue flowers that were growing in Cape Breton last time I was there.