'Tis the season to be jolly,
Family may make us crazy;
Fa la la la la, la la la la.
If you find yourself with people you hardly see (and may prefer it that way) and you try to recount the last 365 days of information to them, there’s more to keep in mind than the number of hours before you go back to your usual business. Even when you find yourself out of the prosperous situations, be sure to cherish the little things. Much joy can be found in counting your blessings — more so the small ones than large. In fact, the small facets of life provide the foundation for the grandiose and awe-inspiring giants that make life so wonderful. It’s easy to notice the giants and neglect the foundation. A slight adjustment of lens reveals the true beauty of the building blocks the giants stand on.
Small talk is the worst. It often comes across as surface-level and can put a damper on the mood of an interaction. But there exists a redeeming quality to it. That minor interaction tells you so much about a person whether you already know it or not. For one, think about all the information that was shared: The Mehrabian principal provides a framework for understanding communication, and describes how only 7 percent of what you get from that small conversation is derived from the words spoken. 7 percent! So what about the other 93 percent do we commonly miss?
Well, 38 percent is tonal and the pitch rate, and way a conversation was said. The other 55 percent is purely body language: arms crossed, head held high, fiercely concerned eyes. This is truly amazing because it relates how most of our information about another is actually held in this small talk. We just don’t notice it. It also remains true that a deep conversation with a significant other or political banter with that crazy cousin reveals the same amount of information in their words. It may not make the situation any better or the heart grow fonder in one case compared to another, but the situation provides the same amount of gain. Furthermore, Malcom Gladwell builds upon this in his book "Blink," stating that our cross section analyses of people actually provide a great amount of insight about people. Small talk is still the worst, but there is so much to learn about a person in a small amount of time, and that’s worth cherishing because big things like marriage, business partnerships and lifelong friendships all began with small conversations.
The most commonly assumed phrases I hear used in conversation outside of those with economics nerds like me are opportunity cost and marginal utility. These apply beautifully to the modal of cherishing the little things. What we give up to gain giants is quite a lot. The stories of CEOs and sports legends all contain grueling journeys to success. These testimonies are commonly sprinkled with collapsing personal lives and even poverty on the mountain top. The opportunity cost is large in comparison and doesn’t leave much room to pivot elsewhere when there’s no foundation of little things; furthermore, when your margin of benefit has to one-up a multi-billion dollar corporation or MVP/championship season, there isn’t much more to do when giants are the only additional benefit achievable. To say emphasis needs to be placed on little things in these examples doesn’t detract from a goal to do better than to have before. This emphasis allows greater fulfillment to achieve marginally greater increases in other areas of life that aren’t attached to worldly measures of success and gain.
Ants are tiny little creatures, but did you know that the weight of all the ants on this earth equals the weight of all approximately seven billion human beings? This is not to mention that these little things do things bigger than most other creatures on the planet. They build complex structures and tunnels that provide artistic and architectural inspiration. Ants also band together during floods and cling to each other to create a raft that can save the colony until they reach land. These arthropods are more than just fun facts. Ants provide a living example of cherished small things achieving colossal feats. We can learn to appreciate their resourcefulness and apply it to our own case here. If we are able to use what we have around us, all of the complex issues and needs of our lives can be met with a little creativity. Cherish the challenge as the minor inspiration for achieving giant tasks.
Give more than you take from life and you will truly be happy. This idea seems to be all the rage this time of year, but it's more fitting as a paradigm shift to cherish the little things. Yes, it definitely is contrary to what some economic thinking might lead us to believe — that we naturally are self-interested and should take everything we can get. There are two ways to count how to accrue all that prosperous times have to give: Increase your paycheck or expect less. The first lends itself to the American Way that working hard enough makes the sky the only limit in what we can have, but the second is probably still harder. The second is the better one still and in fact has its instructions laid out in our topic of giving. Giving has a proven track record to ensure you expect less. Why this is the case is found in research that shows that happiness peaks from monetary gain around $75,000. This baseline isn’t a be-all and end-all, but it does make for an interesting thought suggesting that when you give and refrain from exceeding the monetary wealth which research claims yields maximum happiness, you actually improve your chance to increase a level of happiness. This is not to mention that giving time does not necessarily detract from the ability to gain another buck or two. Who knew there is so much to receive simply by giving?
In accounting for the little things with proper merit, the transactionary process of counting how much you gain in times of prosperity will by far outweigh minor losses in times of challenge. Tell Uncle Tom you loved disagreeing over who should be president. Watch all the animated movies and shows you can with the kiddos around for the holidays. Strive for your dreams while knowing the many areas for success and inspiration. Take a little and give a lot.
Now that we cherish the little things, we can watch the big things grow.
