Sweat the small stuff

fretting and other bad habits I'm sticking to

I am a fretter. I always have been. I get caught up in the details of how things are going to work, reviewing and revising the plans in my head until I fall asleep. I obsess over transitions. The how and the when and the where and convince myself I’m safe from any major inconvenience because I already thought it through. 

Basically, I sweat the small stuff. And the big stuff. And everything in between. 

So you can imagine, after a long season of transitions in parenting, community, work, dreams, marriage, and pace of life… the dawn of a new year brings with it more opportunities to fret. 

I joined the masses in thinking about how to be better. Taking inventory of my heart, making mental piles: keep, toss, maybe. The sweet faux relief of gripping control of a new year. In the middle of this process, as life does, that grip loosened. A handful of news reached me to remind me how little control I really have, living a life so fragile. These events, and anniversaries of events, have me studying the person next to me in the morning. I’m thinking about my people. The people I make breakfast for, the ones I call while driving, send the funny reels to … they are here now, and that is the full extent of information I know. And me. I’m here now, too.

A perspective shift, is a wave you have to ride. Usually a wonderful gift, from a terrible situation. Today that shift carries a sense of urgency. And when I try to go back to the idea of resolutions, I just don’t have it in me to pick myself apart in the name of self improvement.

So I’m taking that bad habit of mine, the fretting, and asking can good come from sweating the small stuff?

There’s a concept I love called habit stacking from the book Atomic Habits. The idea is that if you decide in the new year that you want to work out every morning, the likelihood that you will actually wake up, get dressed and go to the gym every day is pretty low. But if you look at what you’re already doing every morning, and add a step that makes you inch towards your goal, you might actually stand a chance. In the workout example, you might resolve to put tennis shoes on before pouring coffee, suddenly you’ll find yourself being the person you always hoped you'd be, even if just for 20 minutes. 

Habit stacking is a very practical way of meeting your practical goals. But since our lives are so impacted by our internal habits over our external ones, I’m taking the habit stacking to my insides. I’m hopeful that maybe my fretting can be the very thing that helps me become who I want to be. I know about myself, that I can focus on the (potentially negative) details of life. But I also know that it means I pay attention, I am tuned in at all times to what is happening around me, and inside me. It’s a muscle I have built over the years. So what happens if I direct that energy towards an urgency to soak up all the tiny golden details? 

I’m going to let myself fret. I am going to sweat the small stuff. I’m going to let myself have the “how could this possibly work moments” and also have the “wow, how many tiny things had to come together for this to work out?!” Focus on all the details, especially the good ones. I guess that's my resolution. To be obsessively awed by the details of this life. I want to roll around in the things that make life distinctly meaningful. Put my fretting to good use. 

The way Maven wipes her tears on my cheek when she needs some love. 

That first sip of coffee. 

Flickering shadows from the leaves of my favorite tree.

The fierceness in Lucia’s eyes, so sure she’s right.

The tenderness of an apology, like honey on a heart.

The warmth of a hug from behind, just because. 

The absurdity of a bad mood.

The small stuff. The everything.

When life reminds us that we’re not in charge, and it will. When we get bad news, we lose something precious, when the world becomes the place we were afraid it would be … all those tiny moments we took for granted suddenly become out greatest treasures. The body sighing, “I’ve been waiting to learn that, and I was hoping I wouldn’t have to.” 

The truth is, life is far more beautiful when we add up all the ‘small stuffs’.

In the spirit of January contemplation, I’m wondering  what muscle memory do you already have that can lead you to something beautiful? Are you as good about speaking life over yourself as you are to others? Can you match your criticism with radical hype? When you sit down to scroll or numb out, can you stack on 10 minutes of stillness to reflect on the details of the day?

No matter what we made it here, to another year. And that is huge stuff.

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God, let the details of my life point me to You. Give me eyes to see what I usually miss. Help me embrace the beauty of small things, a million tiny “thank yous”. Turn my fear, anxiety, and rumination into awe and wonder and reveling. I want the good stuff. I want the big stuff. I want the small stuff.

Amen.