By Henry Piarrot
“People are often unreasonable and self-centered… Forgive them anyway. If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motives… Be kind anyway. If you are honest, people may cheat you… Be honest anyway. If you find happiness, people may be jealous… Be happy anyway. The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow… Do good anyway. Give the world the best you have and it may never be enough… Give your best anyway. For you see, in the end, it is between you and God… It was never between you and them anyway.” ― Dr. Kent M. Keith
When we acknowledge that bad things happen to good people, we still have to distinguish whether it was by an act of God or simply by the hand of someone small. Tornadoes, floods, earthquakes and even terminal illnesses are commonly viewed as God’s will. But when someone with less skill than your socks puts you out of work to cover their own incompetence, we call that the work of a small person.
However, in each instance we still ask God why because we do not always understand how someone so small can have so much power over our lives.
Usually, when we are experiencing a pain in our life due to a physical problem or illness, we ask God for guidance and support to get us thru the hurt. But painful circumstances brought upon by the despicable actions of others inspire a completely different question of our Maker. We angrily ask God, why did you give someone so unworthy so much power over so many?
I feel sad when bad things happen to good people. But it really tears up my nerves when good things happen to bad ones. To be honest, as I get older I am getting better at not letting those small people define my life. Instead of embracing the bitterness their evil actions inspire, I am learning to find strength by not allowing them to deter me from my chosen path.
I have learned small people get their sense of importance by knowing they can control the outcome of our day or even our lives. Their lack of skills and simple generosity prevents them from finding personal internal satisfaction. Consequently, believing they are powerful enough to alter or even ruin a life becomes the only way they can perversely justify their existence.
Even though, like you, I have been hurt many times by small people, I have made a personal vow to never allow anyone to make me a victim. I will simply take their best shot and overcome all they have to dish out until I am so strong, they will simply know better than to waste their trifle of power on me.
Bullies do not just exist on the playgrounds or hallways of our public schools. They are all over our work places as well. They are small people when they are young and become increasingly smaller as they grow. As a result, small people cannot help that they are small. They are born that way and God has yet to present them with an event of their own significant enough to inspire their growth as descent people.
I do not hate small people. I have actually learned to pity them, as their inability to grow into honest, generous and magnanimous people, is actually a birth defect. They cannot help themselves and cannot find any relief for their pain except for causing others to be grieved by their unfulfilled existence. Consequently, just as any other poor soul with a physical or mental deformity, I must pray for them and ask God to please help reduce the damage they thoughtlessly exact on the rest of us.
So, we must remember that when a small person strikes us down, we must never stay down, as staying down only fuels their appetite to strike again. We must not only get up, but we will carry on our lives in ways that not only allow the scars they produce to heal, but to dissipate. We must never forget that every time we overcome the senseless actions of someone small, we actually grow and become larger in spirit than we were before.
In the end, it is also important to remember that as much as we cannot stand to live and work with small people, we do need them. Because without them and the never ending obstacles they produce, we will not be inspired to grow into the stature that God has planned for us.
“The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds… Think big anyway.” – Commandment #6, The Paradoxical Commandments
Henry Piarrot is a hotel manager and Sevier County resident. Please send all story ideas to hpiarrot@yahoo.com
