The World Series concluded this week. I’ve been rooting for the underdog since before I knew the word, and this week an underdog got to hold the trophy. Really, it was guaranteed. The Brewers and the Rays are both small-market teams that spend a fraction of what the big clubs do, and one of them was going to win.

The clubs with enormous payrolls can buy whatever they’re missing. These two had to make do, so they got very good at the things money can’t purchase. They played "small ball." They cut off the throw from the outfield. They covered the base when the play came their way. None of it makes the highlight reel. Nobody puts a perfectly executed cutoff on a poster.

But so much of baseball turns out to be a thousand small moments where someone is simply in the right place because they decided, long ago, to be in the right place. They practiced it in empty ballparks in the middle of long, dull seasons, with no one clapping. Then one night it’s October, the whole country is watching, and it turns out that was the thing all along.

I think that’s why I’ve always loved the folks who figure out how to use their "small." There’s credit owed to anyone who builds something great, and I mean that. But I keep my eye on the family stretching a grocery budget into a week of real dinners. Or on the school with the patched-together gym and the teacher who takes an extra interest in the students' well-being, or on the person with a garage full of model trains who will talk to anyone about them. Nobody is making a documentary about these folks. They looked at what they had, saw it was less than what everyone else has, and asked what small is good at. Small can be close. Small can be spontaneous. Small can know everyone’s name.

The world is big, and its problems are bigger, and it's easy to feel small when you try to do something for the people in it. What does a casserole weigh against that? Or a carpool, or a Saturday spent on something you love, or a faith so small you hesitate to call it one? Some days it feels like bringing a cup of water to a house fire.

And still, I don’t believe small means pointless. I believe whatever holds this universe together is paying attention to the covered bases and the cut-off throws, and to every quiet corner where somebody keeps showing up. Holding a world together was never a job for one big thing. It gets built out of an enormous number of small things done on purpose, and yours is one of them, even when no one is keeping score. And to someone feeling crushed under the weight of all the big and heavy stuff, your "small" contribution may look like a miracle.

My wish for you this week, Reader, is that you stop apologizing for your small. May you find the one small thing that’s yours to do well, and may you do it again tomorrow, whether or not anyone is watching. And if you ever get the chance to share your small thing, may you be surprised at how ordinary it feels, because you’ve been living it all along.

Live a fiLLLed life, Melissa