Adolph Hitler didn’t wake up one day and decide ‘Hey, I’m gonna kill millions of people and rule the world!’
Judas Iscariot never dreamed of being responsible for the death of the person he respected most, Jesus Christ. Judas didn’t live his life thinking: ‘I’m going to become a thief, I’m going to betray someone who really loves me, then commit suicide.’
Humans in general don’t plan from the time they are young to commit evil atrocities. Or to wound deeply the people they love most. They don’t just wake up one day and decide to be wicked.
The sum of who we are is a million small choices.
Mother Teresa didn’t plan to win the Nobel Peace Prize.
Mahatma Gandhi didn’t decide ‘I’m going to do something so huge that it will change the course of my nation.’
Martin Luther King Jr didn’t march around as a boy, fighting for equality. Yet it is who he became – it is what we remember him for.
The sum of who we are is a million small choices.
Too often, we look at the few major events, the turning points, or the single choice that launched a person into worldwide recognition, either for evil or good. What is less understood, is the million small choices that made that person who they became.
We love stories of heroic acts, bravery, courage, and strength. But these eventful, enormous repercussion, split-second choices are only the sum of a million previous choices.
You can be sure that someone who acts in bravery, has been courageous in a million other ways. A person who shows deep love and selflessness to others, has been selfless and loving in a million previous situations. The same goes for those with evil in their hearts: evil does not just suddenly lay hold of a person and control him or her. Evil had been chosen in a million small ways, for many years. It is a progression. A choice made multiple times in one direction, becomes a habit. Habits become a mind-set which makes up your character, and your character becomes your destiny.
It is never just about the few good or evil choices that were made on a public level. It is more about the million small choices that have been made again and again for the past many years.
This should inspire hope in our hearts: we can change! We can choose which way we want to go. We have choices! Millions of choices. Thus, when we are in a thoroughly public circumstance, making the right choice is already a habit. We won’t think twice about it, because we’ve been choosing this all along.
The small things are actually the biggest things.
The key lies in our daily small choices.
Do we choose life, or death? Courage, or fear? Hatred, or forgiveness?
After all, we are the sum of a million small choices.