Jonesy's Journey: Big or Small

By Mark Jones

“If you think you’re too big to do the small things, you’re too small to do the big things.” - John Maxwell
 
I saw a post on my LinkedIn feed that said the author had never met a truly successful person who leaves their shopping cart in the middle of a parking lot. At first that sounds a little dramatic, but if we’re honest, we all see it happen pretty often, like this shopping cart in the Shaw’s parking lot.

And maybe we’ve even felt the temptation ourselves. You’re in a hurry, the cart return is a long way from your car, and it would be easier to just leave it there for an employee to retrieve.
 
But I’ve come to believe that before we can be trusted with big things, we have to be faithful in the small ones.
 
Small choices show up everywhere in our day. Do we rinse our dishes and put them away after lunch or leave them in the sink for someone else? Do we refill the paper towel dispenser when we use the last one? If we take the second-to-last item, do we replace it … or quietly leave the final decision for the next person?
 
There are countless little moments like this — moments where we get to choose whether to “leave the cart in the parking lot.”
 
Those small, seemingly insignificant decisions reflect something bigger: courtesy, care, service and personal responsibility. And over time, it’s those habits the willingness to do the small, right thing when it would be easier not to — that build the kind of character people trust with greater opportunities.

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