Small Changes, Big Differences

I had an interesting thought.

What's the difference between hydrogen and helium?

Helium is an inert, more stable, and non-flammable gas. Compared to hydrogen with is less stable, reactive, and extremely flammable. Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, estimated to be about 75 percent of the universe's normal matter. Helium is estimated to be about 25 percent of the atoms in the universe.

And that gets me to the real difference.

Hydrogen, as the first element on the periodic table, has one proton and one electron. With only one proton, a neutron isn't needed because there isn't a positive to positive repulsion that would occur if there were two protons). However, hydrogen has three isotopes: protium-1H has no neutrons, deuterium-2H with one neutron, and tritium-3H has two neutrons.

The difference is helium has two protons and two neutrons, surrounded by two electrons.

Since hydrogen isotope can have two neutrons, the key difference between hydrogen and helium is one electron and one proton.

Talk about a small difference.

Atomically (and somewhat simplistically) the addition of a single proton and electron define elements. The element number on the periodic table of elements is the number of protons in the nucleus of the atom. In most cases an element has the same number of electrons as protons. For simplicity, we'll ignore neutrons as some different elements can have the same number of neutrons depending on elemental isotopes. For example hydrogen tritium-3H has two neutrons just like a helium atom. 

Consider the elements this way.

Hydrogen is the smallest element, with one proton, one electron.

Add 78 protons and electrons and instead of a hydrogen atom you now have an atom of gold. Of course, this is an overly simplistic view. Alchemists have dreamed of converting iron or some other cheap metal into gold, and while it is possible it's not an easy or cheap process. My understanding is it would be cheaper just to buy the gold.

But I digress.

One small change--the addition of a proton and electron--creates a new element. Keep making that small change and the elemental changes become enormous in the physical characteristics and behavior.

Changing our life is very similar. We should be working to make small changes. A small improvement every day, week, or month compounds it's effects over time.

Small changes are more sustainable in the long term, meaning we're more likely to keep the small changes than if we tried to make a huge change all-at-once.

Our end result, the gold we're aiming for, may be our dream and it may seem impossible. But small changes and improvements in our life can shift us to that reach that result.

And we don't have to know all the "hows" in the process to get from where we are now to where we want to be. We might have an idea of what needs to happen. And what I've observed is most of the time most people have a good idea of what the first step should be. But most people don't take the first step. Most people want to have everything mapped out. And most people are looking for shortcuts.

Another observation. Often taking the first decisive step, that first action towards the end result, will reveal the next step. And it's not uncommon for the next step to be different than expected. It doesn't seem atypical for the person who reaches an end result to look back and realize the course they took was different than what they thought it would be.