Ripples in the river...

I don't suscribe to the notion that every decision we make fundamentally changes the course of our lives. Of course there exists those major decisions that do affect all subsequent events and choices, but as those are few and far between, I think the most important choices are those that are made quietly and almost too casually day to day. However, as those casual choices that are made day by day add to their aggregate effect, a powerful force is created within our lives. This force affects us far more than all but the most important of life decisions. I think it is alot like comparing throwing a pebble or a boulder in a small brook. As the boulder lands, large ripples are created and the course of the river is blocked. Immediately the water looks for a path of least resistance, and as it finds it, slowly a new path for the brook is formed and after years this new path is forever carved into the earth. However, when we throw a pebble into the brook, immediately ripples occur as well. They spread, but as they spread their effects dissipate, until the very existence of the pebble hitting the water is forever lost, in the movement and current of the brook as it heads ever to the future. However, as we take thousands of small pebbles and throw them one by one, over the course of a lifetime, we build a natural dam in the brook and though the individual effects of those pebbles are forever lost, their aggregate effect forever changes the course of the river and even the manner in which is bubbles and flows.
Too often we become so focused on those large boulders, the momentous decisions of our lives, we forget the power of the little choices that are made often subconsciously. Equally, we often forget to even think about the small choices we make, considering their effects for too insignificant to ever effect our later life. However, I feel the beauty of the brook is not determined by the large boulders that bend it towards a new path, but the small jumps and bubbles it makes as it moves in a prescribed course. That course of the brook is not known because we cannot see the small pebbles that have affected that brook, as they lie hidden beneath the surface, and yet they give the brook its life. Such is our life, and each small decision, though making minimal visible ripples, forever changes and gives life to our existence. Though we look at see the careers, marriages, locations of living, and other great choices as who an individual is, I prefer to look beneath the surface as the little pebbles, the small choices of their lives that define them.
As we make every small decision of our life, let us not be afraid to make mistakes, for usually the small pebble being thrown into the brook, even in a location not desirable, does little more than create small ripples of disruption, as the current of time smooths our course and we are unchanged fundamentally. As long as those little choices that are not in the accordance with our goals are not aggregated to created a new path, we should learn from and live past the wrongly thrown pebble and instead glory in the small decisions we make that are giving our river of life the gradual changes of course. Thus each moment needs to be experienced and lived, though not relived and at the end of our journey as we look behind at the millions pebbles in the stream, with the occasional boulder, and see the winding path our life has taken, we are not saddened, but rather pleasantly at peace with the course of our lives, and all the decisions made that defined who we are.
Don't define me by what you see, define me by what you don't see that has been built up over a million decisions, for that is who I truly am. I think that is the message I got as I sat on the lawn in front of the Spori Building, studying Industrial Organization, today.