Don't Sweat the Small Stuff

Solomon’s wisdom often cuts right to the center of contemporary life, even though it was written nearly three thousand years ago. Listen to this wise king:

“Dead flies will cause even a bottle of perfume to stink! Yes, an ounce of foolishness can outweigh a pound of wisdom and honor. The hearts of the wise lead them to do right, and the hearts of the foolish lead them to do evil. You can identify fools just by the way they walk down the street! If your boss is angry with you, don’t quit! A quiet spirit can overcome even great mistakes. When you dig a well, you may fall in. When you demolish an old wall, you could be bitten by a snake. When you work in a quarry, stones might fall and crush you! When you chop wood, there is danger with each stroke of your ax! Such are the risks of life. Since a dull ax requires great strength, sharpen the blade. That’s the value of wisdom; it helps you succeed. It does no good to charm a snake after it has bitten you.” (Ecclesiastes 10:1-4, 8-10 NLV)

Once we allow ourselves to get all worked up about things that, upon closer examination, aren’t really that bid a deal, we become like the man described by Solomon. He calls such a man foolish. Anxiety and frustration leads to foolishness. It is unproductive and destructive. Often we focus on little problems and concerns and blow them out of proportion. A stranger, for example, might cut in front of us in traffic. Rather than let it go, and go on with our day, we convince ourselves that we are justified in our anger. We play out imaginary confrontations in our mind. Or, we let the “dead flies” stink up the bottle of perfume! The better approach is to let that driver have his accident somewhere else. In fact, it would be far better to have compassion on such a person and remember how painful it is to be in such an enormous hurry!

There are many other “small stuff” examples that occur everyday in our lives. Whether we have to wait in line, listen to unfair criticism, or do the lion’s share of the work, it pays enormous dividends if we learn not to worry about little things. Don’t sweat the small stuff! It’s one of the ways that we can “sharpen the blade” which will get us in touch with the joy and beauty of life.

In the coming days, I’ll spend a little time looking at some of the “small stuff” of life and how the Scripture teaches us to deal with each of them. It is not a matter of deprivation, but focus. The key principle is to never let outward circumstances determine our inward happiness. The following imaginary story illustrates how NOT to live our lives. Have a blessed day today… and DON’T SWEAT THE SMALL STUFF!

A man decided to join a monastery and one of the rules of the group was that you were only allowed to speak two words every ten years. At the end of ten years he said, “Bad food!” Ten more years went by and he said, “Hard bed!” Finally, on his 30th anniversary with the brothers, he thundered, “I quit!” And the priest in charge responded, “You might as well. All you do is complain anyway.”