Baby teeth

Imagine a world where parents didn’t teach their children to brush their teeth until their baby teeth fell out. The reasoning? “Those teeth are temporary anyway, so why bother?” At first glance, this might seem like a harmless shortcut. After all, those baby teeth are destined to fall out, and will get replaced by adult teeth that will last a lifetime.

In this hypothetical scenario, children would grow up without developing the habit of daily oral care. By the time their adult teeth come in, they’d lack the ingrained routine of brushing and flossing. More importantly, they’d miss out on years of learning that oral health is a priority. The result? A generation potentially facing severe dental issues and struggling to adopt good oral hygiene habits later in life.

Thank you indulging me in this thought experiment, which I think offers a stark lesson about the danger of putting off minor tasks or neglecting small responsibilities. The stakes might seem low in the moment, but small decisions stack up, often with far-reaching consequences. So save the file in the shared drive in the correct folder, even if no one has time to review the research for a month; reply to the cold call email; go for a walk. Your success is the accumulation of all those small actions.

Arguably, there are no truly low-stakes decisions. Every action is an opportunity to reinforce positive habits or to slide into detrimental ones. Build wisely.