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Well, it\u2019s been a different kind of a year hasn\u2019t it? And now that Fall is here it\u2019s about to become a different kind of holiday season. A lot of us are feeling cooped up. Not so much because we cant leave the house but because we feel weird getting out there on a big trip, or our favorite hangouts aren\u2019t open for hanging out, or they just don\u2019t have the same vibe, or we\u2019re not free to just have people over whenever we want, or we\u2019re just getting tired of baking banana bread. I\u2019ve personally never baked banana bread but I hear it\u2019s been big Covid thing.

Most of all I think everyone is feeling a little stir crazy with the same ol\u2019 routine day after day. So this is where I remind you to hang in there, be patient, we\u2019re going to get beyond this, and in the meantime \u2026 dig deep and reinvest in showing up for the small stuff.

I had a young friend pay me a huge compliment the other day. At least I think it was intended to be a compliment. She said, \u201cFor someone who has a lot going on you seem to try to take joy in a lot of small unimportant things.\u201d To which I said, \u201cI actually wish I was much better at embracing the small stuff.\u201d Why? Because here\u2019s the hard truth \u2026 With a few exceptions along the way, life pretty much is mostly the small stuff. A lot of small stuff. And even though it\u2019s not easy to stay focused on making the most of all the tiny, banal bits of the day, when I do it makes all the difference.

Think about it. Here\u2019s your life by the numbers:

If you live to be, let\u2019s say 80\u2014which I hope we all do, and far more\u2014but by the time you make it to 80 you will have spent 26 of those years sleeping. You\u2019ll spend an additional 7 years in bed trying to get to sleep or trying to wake up or doing \u201cother things.\u201d

In 80 years of living you\u2019ll spend 13 years working, 4\xbd eating, 3 years on vacation, maybe 1\xbd years exercising, a little over 1 year on romance (from buying flowers to \u2026 you know), 1 year socializing with friends, and 2 years in school (from kindergarten through a bachelor\u2019s degree).

Women will spend 136 days just getting ready for stuff, and men will spend only 46 days getting ready, which is probably why women are usually for ready for life than men. You\u2019ll spend 235 days standing in line, 115 days laughing, 8.5 years watching TV and 3 years \u2026 sigh \u2026 on social media.

So what does that leave us? Well, if you live to be 80 then after all that stuff is handled you have 8\xbd years left. 8\xbd to commute, clean house, go to movies, have a family, run races, tell stories, and do the rest of your life.

I don\u2019t know about you but that just feels grim. So naturally you might go back over the list to see where you could make some big cuts and gain more time. But of course you soon realize the list doesn\u2019t have a lot of room for big cuts anywhere because the list is just a whole lot of little things. Which of course is my point \u2026 life really is mostly just a whole lot of little things.

And that, my friend, is why I try to encourage you to join me in the ongoing quest to show up for, be present in, and whenever possible, celebrate the small stuff. Because life IS the small stuff.

It is, at least for me, the most difficult of disciplines to master. But I\u2019ve also noticed that taking time to notice the small, embrace the small, and enjoy the small, is the most rewarding thing I\u2019ve ever done. Small stuff adds up. Truth is, the small stuff is most of the stuff. It\u2019s how we build things\u2014a house, a habit, a craft, a relationship, a family. And, piece by piece, brick by brick, showing up for the supposedly trivial and unimportant stuff is the real secret to how we build ourselves a beautiful life.