The Little Things

I overheard a guy at the gym the other morning say, as if in judgement, “some people just want to get up and come and go through the motions and not work hard”. I thought to myself, huh. Dragging oneself out of bed and coming here and going through the motions seems exactly like the hard work itself. I know what he meant, I suppose. That some people don’t want to push it, to go big. But I’m counting on the little things being the ones that count. That, like water trickling over stone, the repetition of tiny movement over an extended time period, can alter mountains.

Because I’m not into “going big”. I like to think that the tiny acts of kindness-the holding open of doors, say, or the moving over to make space for someone else, or the letting a car into the line in front of you, or even just a smile in someone’s direction—are the little things that ultimately shift a society. They’re tiny, often unconscious movements, but like the trickling of water over stone, they work together over extended periods of time, to improve our lives and relationships with each other.

Oh, and I’m hoping against all hope this counts for the gym too. I’m counting on my minimal effort (if dragging oneself out of bed at 5 a.m. can be considered minimal effort), repeated over an extended length of time making the difference in my health. Because after all, we’ve all been taught that “it’s the little things that count”.