the l itt l e

THINGS

1

the l itt l e

THINGSBOOK ONE

Copyright © 2012 by Ashley Burrough.All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.ISBN-10: 0-8227-5420-7

Manufactured in the United States of America Designed by Ashley Burrough

Distributed by Chronicle Books LLC.

Chronicle Books LLC680 Second Street San Francisco, California 94107 www.chroniclebooks.com

let me be aware of the treasure you are. Let me

learn from you, love you, before you depart. Let me not pass you by in quest of some rare and per-fect tomorrow. Let me hold onto you while I may, for it may not always be so. One day I shall dig my nails into the earth, or bury my face in the pillow, or stretch myself taut, or raise my hands to the sky and want, more than all the world, your return.

—Mary Jean Iron

Nor m a l d a y,

We all too often get caught up in the grand scheme, the bigger picture, the macroscopic. We pick the details of our lives apart and become overwhelmed.

Not the twenty minutes from now, not the dinner plans this evening, but this very moment. And what if the time we waste loving, lauging, and living isn’t really time wasted?

But what if we took life one step, one breath, one blink at a time?

We must work, but what of our life’s work? Where do words like joy and passion factor in? Certainly you need a job to pay the bills, but do you work in a way that you feel truly accomplished by the things you’ve done? Do you measure your successes and failures by the quality of your work or the size of your paycheck.

quantityQUALITY OVER

IS THE MOST PRECI OUS

CURRENCY BECAUSE IT

IS THE MOST UNCERTAIN

We are all living on a timeline, a beginning and an end to every day, every moment, every story. Time is the most precious currency because it is the most uncertain. Why else do people live in worry over it?

They become enslaved by routine; wish-ing for the weekend, waiting for the next big thing when the next breath isn’t even a thing guaranteed.

People are more successfully driven by passion than fear;

The little things allow us to truly appreciate and enjoy the bigger picture, the monumen-tal milestones in our lives and in the lives of others. Making the most of every moment can be challenging, all the while sounding deceptively simple.

As life steers you from your day-to-day course, make room for surprises and be flex-ible. Let a conversation with a friend or a walk outside become a part of the agenda; not in the sense that you are penciling them in, but that they are the unspoken meaningful things that add value to your day, offering insight or vigor to your work.

If you make time to go running with a friend, or take fifteen minutes for yourself, just that you might sit and be, you become more able to process, work, and live in a way that is both productive and satisfying. You begin to establish the vocabulary and the means for effecting your circumstances instead of allowing them to effect you.

Life often has other plans for us than what we prepare for ourselves.

It is a common deceit to project fear and shame based on what we have or haven’t accomplished, choosing a standard of perception over reality; circumstances aren’t what we thought they would be, leading to disappointment. Life will get you “off track”, to-do lists won’t always get checked off in the ap-propriate amount of time, and truly enjoying life was never a thing to be scheduled in the first place.

FEAR OFfailure

You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson

finish each dayAND BE DONE WITH IT.

The challenge in living for today, to truly make the most of it, is to realize your mor-tality and embrace it instead of fearing, ignoring, or squandering it.

There is too much joy in a single day;

one meaningful conversation, a ray of light through your bedroom window, the extraordinary moment with which you inhale and exhale without consider-ation to meddle with such trivialities as fear, sadness, or boredom. If time is money, how have you spent this ungracious currency that can only be spent and never saved? And no man knows the fullness of his due por-tion, so he is made rich or wretched by how he chooses to use it now.

IT’S TIME FOR YOU TO OPEN YOUR

What if there is no later?Live as though there are no second chances; as if there’s no fixing, proving, or trying it later.

It’s important to have goals, they help us to keep perspective and enable us to live life a little at a time, freeing us to be intentional with the day we are given. You cannot allow your success or failure as an individual to lie in what has or has not been done; the true test of your character lies in this very moment, in what you are choosing to to do with now. It is, in fact, a choice; do not simply let life happen to you. It helps to begin each week, each day, or however often is necessary, by asking yourself clarifying questions about yourself; who am I, where do I stand as of right now, what do I desire to be, what is causing me the most stress, anxiety, or fear as of right now, and what abilities or tools do I have in this moment to be able to deal with that, one task at a time? As you ask and answer, you are able to focus, giving perspective and order to your thoughts on your identity and your circumstances.

TAKE NOTHING FOR

granted

in today with all that you have, inhaling deep and long; take every second of it in. Do the things which terrify you the most, stop wor-rying about how it’s all going to get done and focus on working one task at a time. There is the here and now, the ever-present problem is not looking down the road to the solution you could have, but actually doing whatever step it takes to solve the current moment. Dwelling in the past on your mistakes or looking to the future, wishing every active second away of-fers no kind of life worth living, no real answer.

You must breathe

the invaluable treasure of everything you already have that is truly good in your life. Remind your-self that you are alive, stretch your limbs, take in the air—whatever it takes to make you feel truly alive, here, and present in the moment with your eyes wide open and your lungs full; grateful to have even another second to do something with all that’s aching inside of you.

Wake up in the morning and remember

Stop your striving, spinning mind, hush your screaming to-do list, throw aside the worries, the fears, any insecurities or doubts you may have acquired along the way and take a sec-ond to truly realize that life, though fleeting, is yours now to do with what you will.

U N C O M M O N A D V E N T U R E for T H E C O M M O N B E I N G