The Tiny Rock in My Shoe

I’ve had a few different blogs through the years, and each worked for a different season in my life. It’s fun to go back to those blogs from time to time and read about that season of life. The blog I’m sharing today is one of those posts from a past blog that still resonates with me several years later…

One morning, not too long ago, I had just started my morning run when I felt a tiny rock in my shoe. My first thought was, “Oh rats! I need to stop and remove that rock!” Then I remembered that I’d already untied and re-tied my shoes at least five times that morning because I can’t stand the laces to be even a little bit tight on the top of my foot, and obviously, from the number of ties and re-ties, achieving this small, but important, thing had been a bit tough that morning. So as I was running, I kept going back and forth with myself in my mind:

“Stop. Remove the rock. Re-tie the shoe. Hope it’s not too tight. Possibly repeat. More than once. Get frustrated. A lot. Keep running. Try and ignore the rock. It’s just a tiny rock, after all. Don’t chance not getting the re-tying thing right. You’ll be done in 30 minutes (can you tell this tiny rock consumed my thoughts a bit during my run?), and then you can get rid of it. It’s only a few minutes. No big deal. It’s not like it hurts or anything. It’s just annoying. Really annoying.”

So as I was having this debate with myself (Thankfully, it was an in-my-head-only debate and not a verbal debate. That would’ve been just plain weird!), I thought about a few things related to this tiny little rock:

• How many little annoying—but totally unimportant—things are there in my life that I allow to worry me, or consume my thoughts, or annoy me and cause me to waste precious time? I need to let go of them, get over them, and move on!
• I need to remove the little things that truly cause problems sooner rather than later. It’s not worth the time and effort spent keeping these tiny issues around. Get rid of them and move on!
• Some teeny-tiny, seemingly unimportant things can become big issues if they’re not taken care of, so stop and take care of them NOW! Thinking about this tiny rock consumed my entire run, although part of the thinking was about content for this post, so I think that’s a good thing because I was able to ponder and then learn some important concepts. Take care of them and move on!
  

And it was nice to get home from my run and get that pesky tiny rock out of my shoe.

Do you have any “tiny rocks” that are affecting your life? I know this is something I’ve been thinking about lately, and I’m committed to taking care of any “tiny rocks” ASAP so they don’t turn into any physical or mental “big rocks” that can cause issues in my life.