The Taming Power Of The Small

Libra Full Moon Deep Dive

“And now that you don’t have to be perfect, you can be good.”​ — John Steinbeck

Perfectionism and cynicism are two sides of the same coin.

One tells us we’ll never be good enough to ever get started. The other tells us that, even if we got started, it would never amount to anything.

In a way, both perfectionism and cynicism are inherently lazy ways of operating in the world, offering us permission to do nothing.

And the appeal of doing nothing cannot be overstated.

The modern world often seems like a hostile colossus of churn and change that we can never dent or scratch or hope to influence in any measurable way.

In our time of hypernovelty, it really does seem like life is always happening to us— an unseen riptide that comes along to drag us under with each new Black Swan event or series of layoffs or stock market crash.

It’s usually enough to try to just survive the day, balancing the seemingly growing list of to do’s, obligations, and bills with the inherent requirements and limitations of being a carbon-based life form on planet earth.

Add to this the implied humiliation ritual (courtesy of social media) should you misstep or fail while trying something new, and you’ve got a real recipe for total paralysis.

But what if I told you that even the smallest steps from the seemingly smallest among us can make a huge difference?

In the I Ching, this called The Taming Power Of The Small.

And there’s nothing small about it.