Sweat the Small Stuff

A few years ago, Josh and I took a road trip to visit Capitol Reef National Park.  It is in the heart of red rock country.  We planned to camp at a primitive campsite with a pit toilet, but no water.  This campsite was far from the Visitors Center and main road.  We left our home much later than we should have.  We started to get anxious when we could not find our way to the campsite.  We were not even close and it became darker and darker.  We could not tell what road we were traveling on.  Even though we had a map, we were lost.  The lines on the map did not seem to tell us where we were, so we took a lot of guesses.

I remember turning onto a dirt road.  It was dark, we were tired and in a hurry to find the right road to take us to our destination.  Josh was driving while I was still trying to figure out where we were on the map.  Because we were in the middle of nowhere and it was so dark, we relied on our headlights to see a short distance ahead of us.  This road had a lot of loose gravel, sand, bumps and bends.  We were probably driving too fast for these conditions in the dark.  Without a seconds notice I looked up and saw what had suddenly appeared into our view.  Josh applied full force on the brakes and our car skid a few feet in the sand.  I distinctly remember my heart pounding out of my chest and the sick feeling in my stomach.  I was not sure that our car was going to stop in time.

The car stopped just a few inches away from a rushing river.  I was so scared and I immediately had images in my head of us plummeting into that river, at night, in the middle of nowhere.  We nervously turned around and drove away from the river and away from that lonely dirt road.  When our nerves settled down and my heartbeat returned to a normal rate, I took a GOOOOOD look at our map.  I turned to Josh and stated, “Ohhhhh, that’s what that little blue line was for.”  We had a good chuckle after our near mishap.

Maybe we SHOULD sweat the small stuff and pay better attention to the details.  Little things add up and CAN make a huge difference in our lives.  When we ignored the blue line on our map, it really could have cost us.  It seemed like a small and insignificant detail at the time.  Don't make the same mistake while you are trying to reach your goals. The small things in our daily lives DO count.  Fight for a better YOU.