Small is such a relative term, because what’s small for you isn’t necessarily small for me, or vice versa. Sadly, often times it takes something truly big to remind us of what’s actually small. But I don’t want to know the big to appreciate the small. I don’t want to live with regret, wishing I had truly appreciated the little things when I had the chance. There’s no way to know what the future holds, so I want to appreciate everything I have right now, despite how we all take things for granted. When things become so commonplace and normal, we’re bound to. Yet, it’s important to sometimes step back when things seem hard, and put things into perspective: is this big or little?

We all have those days when it seems the world is out to get us: you wake up late, spill your coffee, forget to do an assignment, fail your test, miss the ball and lose the game, etc. Days like this happen to all of us, and we can either dwell on them and decide the world is evil, or shake them off, take a step back, and realize that in the grand scheme of things, these little inconveniences or blunders are nothing, they’re tiny. Everyone has the right to be upset initially, but there comes a time when you have to press onwards, and realize there are greater things to worry about.

Usually what I do, when I’m frustrated or upset, is ask myself, are these tears, or is this frown, really worth it? Or should I save them for a day that hopefully (God willing) I'll never have to deal with? And then I think about all the people who unfortunately do have those days. This summer I learned about the tragedy of a teacher I had in middle school. Over the past five years, her husband was having kidney issues, so my teacher donated her kidney to move her husband up on the transplant list. Then this past year, he suffered a brain aneurysm, so my teacher was helping him through the hospital and rehab, while also raising her two young boys. When things finally seemed like they were getting better, just this past August, my teacher was diagnosed with a massive brain tumor. At that point, the only option was surgery. She made it through the five-hour surgery, but due to the swelling, she did not survive. She was taken off life support, and passed away shortly after. So while we stress and worry about the small challenges in our everyday lives, there are people everywhere dealing with tragedies and difficulties we can’t even begin to understand. So for their sake (if not for our own), relish in the fact that the biggest struggles we have right now are not actually all that big. There are hundreds of thousands of people all around the world that would trade our big struggles with theirs any day.

I’m currently writing this lying in bed, sick with laryngitis or something of the sort, and I missed a cross-country meet today with my team. At first I was really upset that I happened to get sick on the day of the race, but I realized that I will have so many more chances to compete, and this illness is something I can easily overcome. So while my team went off to race, I turned my frustration into acceptance, because I have so much more to be happy about. I’m happy to be sitting in the comfort of my college dorm, at a place that I love, and knowing I have people in my life to love. Aren't those the only things that truly matter? For me, health, family, and friends are colossal. Everything else in comparison is microscopic.

We all have moments where we exaggerate the small, and zoom in and enlarge things that aren’t worth expanding, but as long as we can step away from our narrow vision, and see the broader, and fuller picture, we will be able to get through anything that threatens to minimize us. We have the ability to control whether things are little or big, so cherish the microscopic challenges in your life, because by comparison all of the surrounding good is so much bigger.