It’s all in the little things!

About two weeks ago my Sunday School class had to perform for the Church. I was in charge of the 7-11 year olds and there were 24 of them to keep under control. I had been working on the costumes for the item for about two weeks and on the night before I still hadn’t finished it! After staying up till 4:30am, only to get up again at 7am and knowing I had a full day ahead of me left me nothing short of cranky!

 

I was not satisfied with anything.

The Butterfly wings didn’t have enough glitter, the chickens heads were not perfect, the rabbits ears too long….and the list just went on.

 

The turning point for me was when I put the kids in their costumes and I saw the looks of wonder on their faces. They didn’t care about the minor details that had been eating at me and making me fuss. They were just overjoyed to be in costume and performing for their parents and the rest of the Church.

In my work with children I see this type of behavior all the time. Children are so much more satisfied with what they do and how they do it. When I go to babysit the kids I work with, I can take crayons, colour pages, pens, pencils…you name it…but after a while they’ll find something so ordinary and be so fascinated that it would completely boggle my mind. But it also got me thinking.

 

How many times are we unsatisfied with what we have, what we do and how we do it? I’m pretty sure that if I bothered to think about it, I’d find something that made me edgy and unsatisfied every day. As we grow older our satisfaction levels seem to decrease and we get more tense and cranky. I’m quite a perfectionist and most often that sets me on edge. If I’m leading a team it sets others on edge. In fact I can bet that when I finish typing out this blog post I’ll probably sit and ponder over the completely minor details and fuss about what people might think! J  I never said I was perfect! (Far from!!!!)

 

The other day I was grousing over how much fun we had in Guildford last year and how I’m going to miss it so much this year. Looking over the pictures didn’t help my mood at all. Every picture I thumbed through held a memory and every memory was precious and made me long to do it all over again. Fortunately for me before I could get too far down in the ditch of self pity I came across a quote in a book which read, “Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened” and it made me think of all the reasons I had to be thankful. Thankful that the journey didn’t end way back in January. That momentary goodbye was merely the end of the beginning. I’m still in touch with the friends I made and occasional chats with Whitney and Zuhal via Skype make me realize that even after 11 months we can still pick up right where we left off.

 

To all of you who will be going to Guildford in January, remember to savour every moment. You’re going to wish the week never had to end. Trust me! Fully live the ‘little things’ that the experience has to offer because those are what you will relive over and over in your mind once your back home. And always remember the most important part…it’s not only the amazing friendships that will remain. The knowledge that you’re not alone in your desire to bring about change will carry you through some tough times in your activism. At the end of the day who are we to indulge in self pity and dissatisfaction? Certainly not when we have so many ‘little things’ to be thankful for.