The world is a hard place on little things. It's as if there's an inverse relationship between an object's size, and the magnitude of its challenges. Simple as this, I'm six feet tall. I can walk a mile, even with a cane and be less tired than a toddler who walks the same mile. Smaller than a toddler, an ant for example may not be able to even walk a mile; I don't know if it can or can't, but I'm sure it would be a near death experience for an ant.
Massive oaks do better in driving rain than flowers. We could think of a million examples.
I believe that all of our problems and challenges, physical, psychological etc., are all just numerous small problems, linked together or piled-up on one another into big boxes, and that there's no such thing as a big problem or a big challenge. All of them are just aggregated small problems.
This may be self-evident to some people; it may be that you agree with me but wonder why I make such a big deal about it. Some say, so what.
If you agree with my first theory, the world is harder on little things than big things, it follows that little problems are more difficult to solve than big ones. It also follows that there is no such thing as a big problem, of itself. Inevitably, if big problems don't exist, and the world is a hard place on little things, we'd create bigger problems from smaller ones. Kind of like building protective walls around a town in medieval times, big stone walls to protect, not just problems, but those things we value as well.
I suffered a brutal 5 or 6 days this passed week. I didn't want to help anyone. I didn't care much about anything except easing the pain in my feet, legs and back. My focus was so narrow, that I begged God to just ease-up on me.
I was angry. I hunkered in behind those stone walls I just wrote about. I needed painkillers, my bed, pillows for my feet, sleep, my cell phone ( to scream at my doctors), tea, acupuncture, massages, TV and books, and lots of smokes, Dunhill menthols, prayers and on and on and on.
I'm sure you've done the same thing at one time or another. The paragraph above this one is deconstruction: breaking my big problem, pain; into all of those smaller, manageable practices that ease my pain.
All of our problems, literally all of them, can be mitigated or solved by this habit. I bring this subject up again to introduce the next rule: there is something I might also have done, that would have helped immeasurably, reached out to you. In my isolation, I didn't ask the people who always help me, you, for help. Had I done that, even though I might not have seen my inbox for days, I know that it would have been full. Short notes, "Hang tough, it'll get better.", and longer ones, too. All of them caring. And I'd have felt better. You would too, for having written them.
This is a little thing. It's also Rule # 9 Ask for Help. Give Help. It's a little thing that's more important than a big thing.
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