I want to know who it was. Who can I blame? Who was the first person to steal the decorative headpiece off of a Barbie and take off running, thereby making Barbie void of her borrowed identity? Did this person think it was funny? Was said petty criminal responding to the unavoidable delivery of a double-dog-dare? Whoever it was, I doubt he or she could have understood the full ramifications of what felt like a harmless choice. But now, because of this singular selfish decision, parents across the globe were left struggling Christmas morning to pry the crown, pilot hat, biker helmet off Barbie’s tiny plastic head. 

To add insult to injury, the plastic ties (three at a minimum) that hold the headwear tight need to be cut with the precision of a surgeon, as close as possible to the scalp without cutting any of the precious hair (all this while Barbie’s new owner stood beside me shouting with panic, “don’t cut her hair! Don’t cut her hair!). There is no way to reach the other side of the plastic tie, unless Barbie is prepared for a lobotomy. Therefore, one must push the remaining piece as far into the head as possible, hoping it is magically absorbed and everyone can move on with life as normal.

The same can be said about the overindulgent packaging of any toy that left Santa’s workshop this season. It takes longer to sever all the ties and unpackage the product than most children will spend playing with it. Maddening. 

As I masterfully removed countless security ties Christmas morning, my mind tunneled deeper along this train of thought and I began to review other inconveniences we now must endure as a result of one’s person’s poor decision; the removal of shoes at airport security, the flagging down of a salesperson to unlock the coveted video game your child must have, the multi-factor authentication process when I just want to log in to Google? And then there’s the poor decision of all poor decisions – the darn apple that Adam just had to entice Eve to consume. Really guys? Was that absolutely necessary when you had full access to every single other tree in the orchard?

We could spend hours and fill volumes thinking of all the bad choices – from annoying to inhumane – that have been made since the awarding of our free will with that bite of forbidden fruit. With the start of the new year, we have fifty two weeks of choices before us; three-hundred and sixty-five days of opportunity to choose love, choose kindness, choose joy. We can be the first person to show the overtired barista some patience when placing our order (and even forgiveness when they get it wrong), the first person to smile and hold the door for the stranger behind us, the first person to show sincere gratitude for even the smallest kindness of another, the first person to lift our gaze from our social media feed and make eye contact with our family members sitting across the room. As Mother Teresa so beautifully said, “Not all of us can do great things. But we can all do small things with great love.”