The-Slight-Edge

178 The Slight Edge
We never know what people may need at any given point, and a
smile, a moment, a sincere question about their lives, someone to listen,
might just be exactly what a person needs. It is one of those Slight Edge
disciplines. It would be so easy not to talk to them, to be caught up in
my own thoughts, to not have an interest outside of myself. But as this
phenomenon called the Slight Edge catches on, what if we used it beyond
ourselves, what if we used it to create a positive moment for all who
cross our paths. It would eventually start to mess with the negativity and
indifference that so often greets us.
I try to do the same but on a much bigger scale with my friends and
family. Once my daughter was born, I felt as if I had begun the most important
job of my lifetime. I have practiced the Slight Edge with her, in every way
imaginable, with the best possible results. My encouraging, positive, you-cando-anything
attitude has been practiced more on her than on anyone else in my
life, from the time she was born. (She is an only child, so no one got left out!)
With children it is often so much easier to take the path of least
resistance, to let them eat that fast food they love rather than cook something
healthy, to let them watch TV rather than read to them, to let them play
video games rather than to interact with them. I worked to make the Slight
Edge decision every day in every way with her, and it has paid off in a big
way. She is now an adult, a woman who knows she can do anything she sets
her mind to. I can’t really list the ways it has paid off without sounding like
a typical proud mother, but I think you can imagine the outcome!
I can no longer make the Slight Edge decisions for her, but the
wonderful result is that now she is making her own Slight Edge decisions,
and I am sure she will pass those on to her children.
Everything You Do Is Important
Toss a rock into a pond, and you’ll see ripples from its impact spreading
out until they reach the opposite shore. The same thing happens in life—only in
most cases, you never see those ripples.
Everything you do is important. When you smile at a child and encourage
him, or scold him and tell him he’s no good—in either case, you may see the
splash it makes, and you may see the first or second ripple, but the impact goes
far, far beyond what you see. You don’t see all the ripples.
You teach someone to read ten pages of a good book a day, and you may see
how it changes her, but chances are you won’t see how it changes her kids, and