Small Things That Make a Big Difference

I have created a video series on YouTube called “Rise & Whine”. In the beginning of each episode, I hold up a mug. The mug was a Secret Santa gift that I got back in 2005 and I use it every day. And one of the things that I noticed is it’s sort of a better quality mug than I would have probably bought for myself. It’s got a nice weight to it, it’s like that diner quality mug- it keeps things hot for a long time, I like this handle. And for a lot of these functional things in life, the things we use every day, it seems like when you have something that’s slightly nicer than just the most functional thing, you can find it makes that experience a little nicer. Makes having the coffee a little nicer, the morning a little nicer. I have a brother Robby who passed away back in 1999 and he had many wonderful qualities and among them was he really appreciated the qualities of things that we use every day, and the details around them and what made them nicer than just sort of the basic functional things.

And he called this the difference that makes a difference; in other words, the idea that when you have something a little nicer — and he didn’t mean the most expensive thing you could buy — but something that’s a little nicer than you do have to use every day, like a razor, or a wallet, or a pen, then it makes life a little bit nicer. And I’m not sure why we don’t do this more for ourselves naturally. It could be that these functional things don’t matter to some people and I guess that’s okay, but I also wonder if it’s because we don’t feel like we deserve that nicer thing. But if it really does make a difference, maybe it’s not a question of deserving it but it’s something really simple that we can do for ourselves. That because we use this thing every day, actually does make a difference.

So I encourage you after you read this post, to look around at the things that you use every day and maybe there’s one thing that could use a little bit of an upgrade, and I think you know what to do next.