Remember the Sand

With the turning of a calendar, there is a reflection on the past, and the future. Many look at their year of 2016 and are unhappy with the results. In all honesty, MOST of us are unhappy with the results. All too often we miss the little things that made the year good. Maybe we even miss the big things too, because time has gone by so quickly. As my year calendar year ended, I could think of some big things that happened in 2016. But I also remember a lot of little things. Cards from loved ones. Laughter with friends. Fellowship with brethren. Date nights with my sweetheart. Snuggles with my boys. It’s the day to day things which get you through the year. Big stuff will always happen, and if you let them, they will overpower all the other things. The little things that fill in the gaps like sand between boulders. Problem is that we always seem to remember our year of boulders—and not the millions of grains of sand (ie. Little things).

This year, try to remember the sand.

Yes the boulders. The BIG events. The crisis times. The MOMENTS. Those will always happen. They will always dominate our thoughts and our memories. They will sometimes threaten to squash us. So reflect on the sandy things. The little bits that brought you joy. The kind words. The kind gifts. The smiles. The phone calls. The laughter. The nights with friends. The snuggles on the couch with your spouse or children. The dinner with family. The walks in the park. Fill your mind with the little things that get you through every day, and the boulders won’t be so overwhelming. In fact, you can BURY a boulder with sand.

One way that you can reflect on the sandy things throughout the year, is to make a “Blessings Jar” or a “Good times Jar” or a “Little Things Jar”.

What is it?

Take a quart jar. Wrap ribbon around it. Make it pretty. (or just leave it alone if it’s not your kind of thing. LOL). Make a label for it that says one of the above things.

you can click this and use this one like mine, if you want

Now, next to it, keep a small pad of paper. Or a small pad of sticky notes. Any small paper will do.
Whenever something good happens to you—NO MATTER WHAT IT IS—take a moment and write it down with the date. Then fold it and pop it into your jar. Do it all day long. Do it once a day. Have your family do it too. Keep doing it throughout the year. Then, at the end of the year, you can read about all the POSITIVE things that happened. Some might be big—maybe a new job, new car, new house, good grades, raise, etc—but most will be little. Maybe someone bought you a coffee. Or you received a card from a friend. Maybe you reconnected with someone you hadn’t seen in awhile. Maybe you successfully did 30 minutes of exercise. Or lost 1 (or 10!) pound. Maybe you had a great conversation with your kids. Or had a date night.

The point is to fill that jar with all the things we will likely forget as time moves on. It lets us see the year much differently.

But you know what? Open that jar also on days when things AREN’T going well. When the boulders are overwhelming you. Reach for the Little Things jar and remind yourself of the “sand” you are collecting. It might help that boulder get smaller—or buried.