Letting go of the little things

How are you at letting go of the little things that happen every day? Things like someone cutting you off in traffic, making a rude comment, pushing in front of you in line, someone taking credit for an idea you had, someone being late…the list of daily annoyances is endless.

When we hold on to these little things, we tend to make them bigger by playing them over and over in our minds, creating a big story around them. When we get the story fine-tuned, we tell it to someone else, then someone else, really, anyone we talk to that is that is willing to listen and commiserate with us. Could that be a way to join allies? I think it was for me. I always so wanted to feel a part of something, to feel connection.

We can get a frenzy of emotions built up around a small inconvenience, if we don’t watch it, we spend most of our energy that day justifying our stance on what happened. When we build relationships on looking for things to commiserate about, we will always find something. Then we use our energy for that instead of finding more interesting, helpful things to collaborate on.

I have been aware of this behavior in myself, and with that awareness came a desire to change the way I look at and approach things.

There are going to always be things that annoy us.

What if their purpose is really to help us grow instead of getting caught up in annoyance? We have the choice.

What if they give us a reminder that we can respond by letting it go; choosing kindness or react by giving it our attention and energy.

This may seem like a little thing. If it does, consider how much time you spend on the little annoyances that occur daily. Little things can become big things.

Remember, I told you in the beginning of the year how important personal responsibility was going to be. It is all about your choices.

When we change the world changes.