POWER OF LITTLE FINGER

By : Leo Wahyudi S

The scripture says, “Whoever is faithful in small matters will be faithful in large ones; whoever is dishonest in small matters will be dishonest in large ones.”

I am not saying I am religious, but the verse exerts a pull on my mind. It is just an awful truth we have got to believe. Small things many times do great things. In positive light, we could imagine about the processor chip of our computer. It is just tiny stuff comparing to the great works it could perform. We generally reckon this fact.

Contrary to the fact, small matter many times makes us cranky. It is right close to our nose when we lost good-tempered quality upon feeling the dust annoyance in our sight. It is just minor stuff with major impact, isn’t it?

For young and busy parents, it is quite upsetting to know their two years toddler mess up the already set up living room. Worse still, one of the parents would have to clean the floor from the toddler uncontrollable peeing. Alas, they run out of diaper. It terribly is the nightmare for particularly young parents.

They face just an insignificant but common fact about their toddler. But it might bring down the should-have-been splendid weekend after long hard and daunting work days for the parents. The innocent action of the kid, however, could even make  the mother and father lose their tempers. They put on the blame each other’s responsibility. It is just like blowing our top would we were in such a mess.

I happen to face such a reality show. My wife and I went mad due merely to small thing at home. Sometimes baseless reason is not worth to draw us into unexpected battle. We act like Mr. and Mrs. Clean who easily point the finger at each other.

I would frequently say to her, “It is you who should be responsible for this mess. You should teach him how to behave!”  And, she often and automatically replies, “Do you think who are you? You are the father who should give a living example to our kids.” We wage an unexpected war the whole day.

Elder people say many times that I have to beware of the first five years of marriage life. They convince me that there must be hardship, disharmonious relation, and wrestling match during those years. I wonder whether I should keep my Dad’s words in my mind or not. But, it might be true in a way.

Fortunately my wife and I had commitment long before stepping forwards our family. We put aside the long-standing myth about marriage life. We just believe better or worse thing in marriage depends on the couple themselves regardless the age of marriage, after all. Thanks God, my wife and I are on the right track, I guess.

Back to my quarrel against my spouse, I gave  up that day. I still need her, love her, and love my family. But my man ego sometimes is too intense dwelling in my heart. “Why should I end up the war?” my ego and pride says.

In such a high tempered mode, we usually keep the mouth tight-lipped. No words to say, even just simple ‘Hi.” But, I realize in this light we hurt our own heart. At least, it breaks apart our heart-to-heart dialogue habit. Each of us could not stand being wordless even just a day long. We are aware of something missing in our daily life. It is as if vanishing signal on our communication device. It is real sucks, I reckon.

I am of the opinion that picture speaks thousand words, and so does small action. In such dilemma usually I try to come closer to her. It comes across in mind that I should act like a gentleman. I swear with all humble man’s stubborn heart, I dare to take her hand, hold it, and seek her little finger. I clutched her pinkie with my own little finger. Our silence at such a moment speaks a lot of things. She stares at me and usually gives me tight hug a moment later. The war ends up with just pinkie diplomacy.

Back to the outdated but yet cheerful childhood, I many times ended fight against my mate by clutching little fingers. My mate then smiled at me and invited me again in his gang mates to spend playful games.

Now upon having engaged a marriage life, my wife and I have commitment to play as if kids who want to say sorry and make peace deal by clutching little fingers. It works out well so far. Pride, selfishness, self esteem, pigheaded heart melt down in the so-called pinkie peace deal diplomacy. It is small but powerful matter.(WSL)

(This articles was published in Reader’s Digest Indonesia, March 2011 edition)