I had a conversation with a friend yesterday wherein she asked me if I had recently spoken with a mutual friend. I answered, “No, I haven’t seen him online.” As soon as I said that, I realized it was the ‘Small-of-It.’ My response wasn’t a lie, I hadn’t seen him online, but there was something much more important behind my actions than a quirk of opportunity. I hadn’t spoken with our mutual friend in a while because our last conversation was painful and I wasn’t interested in deepening that friendship as a result. That was the ‘Large-of-It.’
One could argue that my answer was politic. I would agree. One could argue that I had a right to keep things close to the vest if I chose to. I would agree with that as well. And yet, my response caused me to pause; gave me an opportunity to think about how I chose to present myself to the world.
The question I pondered was this: When does giving the small-of-it to the world make ME smaller?
I began to see that responding to the world with the small-of-it can be insidious. It can begin to feel as if everything we have, everything we are internally, is too much for the world. The small-of-it response can prompt us into fear; into believing the world will knock us down or cause us pain if we dare to present the large-of-it. It can permeate our thinking and cause us to pull away from the spark of light that we truly are. Fostering the small-of-it response can overtake our creative processes and effect our visioning. We can begin to see ourselves as having no alternative but to BE the small-of-it in ALL areas of life.
See now that the small-of-it may be the truth, but it is not the whole truth, and may not even be the better part of the truth. The large-of-it carries weight, has more importance, and therefore adds power to our vision of what we want out of life.
So this week, ask yourself this: Do I respond to life with the small-of-it, instead of the large-of-it? Are there ways in which I can begin to live the large-of-it, without fear of the consequences? Instead, am I ready to give credence to that which makes me larger?
The Small of It
I had a conversation with a friend yesterday wherein she asked me if I had recently spoken with a mutual friend. I answered, “No, I haven’t seen him online.” As soon as I said that, I realized it was the ‘Small-of-It.’ My response wasn’t a lie, I hadn’t seen him online, but there was something much more important behind my actions than a quirk of opportunity. I hadn’t spoken with our mutual friend in a while because our last conversation was painful and I wasn’t interested in deepening that friendship as a result. That was the ‘Large-of-It.’
One could argue that my answer was politic. I would agree. One could argue that I had a right to keep things close to the vest if I chose to. I would agree with that as well. And yet, my response caused me to pause; gave me an opportunity to think about how I chose to present myself to the world.
The question I pondered was this: When does giving the small-of-it to the world make ME smaller?
I began to see that responding to the world with the small-of-it can be insidious. It can begin to feel as if everything we have, everything we are internally, is too much for the world. The small-of-it response can prompt us into fear; into believing the world will knock us down or cause us pain if we dare to present the large-of-it. It can permeate our thinking and cause us to pull away from the spark of light that we truly are. Fostering the small-of-it response can overtake our creative processes and effect our visioning. We can begin to see ourselves as having no alternative but to BE the small-of-it in ALL areas of life.
See now that the small-of-it may be the truth, but it is not the whole truth, and may not even be the better part of the truth. The large-of-it carries weight, has more importance, and therefore adds power to our vision of what we want out of life.
So this week, ask yourself this: Do I respond to life with the small-of-it, instead of the large-of-it? Are there ways in which I can begin to live the large-of-it, without fear of the consequences? Instead, am I ready to give credence to that which makes me larger?
