Oh sir, it’s only wafer thin! – John Cleese
I have a guilty habit: when walking home I often stop off at one of the 25 delis that I pass on my walk to and from the subway and grab a package of those delicious, vanilla-filled wafer cookies.
This usually happens at the end of a busy day and the snack always helps to take the edge off before jumping on the train to head home. Today was definitely one of those days and after stopping off at the bodega, I managed to approach the station just as the last car of the train was leaving.
As I chowed down on the wafery goodness, a blatantly obvious thought occurred to me. Not only is this keeping me from getting my weight back under control1, but what seemed like an minor decision at the time would have major implications on the rest of my day.
By missing the train, I added at least 10-15 minutes to my commute, which keeps my wife from leaving for her well-deserved night out and takes time away from enjoying the last bits of daylight with my three-year-old in our backyard.
Did the delay change my life in any kind of dramatic way? No. But it’s not the dramatic changes that make the difference at the end of the day.
Oftentimes, I get so obsessed with big decisions that I ignore the cumulative impact of my smaller choices. This tends to be especially true when we are talking about a decision that will incrementally detract from my life while exponentially adding to my waistline.
Lately, I’ve been looking at the larger choices in my life. Maybe, just maybe, I am going about it all wrong and I’d be far better off examining the little missteps that I continue to make every single day.
It’s a lot to digest2 over a train ride, but one thing is for sure: it’s time to start walking past the wafers…