The Plague of Little Things

By Jeff Becraft

There are many times I will run into what I call “the plague of little things.”

Now this applies to a lot of different situations, but one of them would be something like this: you go to print something… and it doesn’t print. So you go and look at the printer and it says it is out of paper. So then you go and get the paper… and put paper back in the printer. Now it still doesn’t print. It is out of ink. So you go to where the printer ink is… and you have all the colors except the one color that is needed for the printer to keep working.

So you now go to the store, come back, and load in the cartridge. Then the printer still won’t work. You don’t know why the printer is not working. So then you restart the printer and you restart your computer.

Now the thing finally prints.

The problem is – it has taken two hours for what should have been a 30 second operation.

And this is what I call “the plague of little things”… and it is these kinds of things that drive me crazy. (Just being honest.)

One of the things that we can get from this is that there are times in a major crisis that we make it through that crisis. But we need to be careful… because sometimes it is the little things that will trip us up. And sometimes, it is little things that lead to bigger things.

So certainly, we want to keep the main thing the main thing, but be careful of the little things that can wind up tripping us up, shifting our attitude, and setting the direction for our day… which can lead to some bigger things that we will regret later.

There has been more than one time where my day is going along just fine and then a few little things happen in a row and next thing you know, I’m heading down the yellow brick road and my attitude has gone completely off the rails and I am ready to blame anybody and everybody for my terrible mindset.  Worse yet, my attitude can continue to go downhill and five hours later, my attitude can be way out in the bayou… all for a few little things that happened five hours earlier?  And that is going to control my perspective for the rest of the day?

We don’t need to let it.  If some little things trip us up, recognize them as little things, step over them and keep moving forward. Let’s not let the plague of little things ruin our attitude for the day… which not only affects us but everyone around us.

It’s a great day to have a great day!

Jeff Becraft is the Director of Our Place of Hope, where people find encouragement to regain meaning, purpose, and hope for their lives. Jeff has dedicated much of his life to helping shift the vision of people’s lives. If you would like Jeff to speak to your group or event, you can connect with him at  [email protected].