No. Big. Deals.

It seems small, right?

No big deals, yeah, the perfect little mantra to simplify life.

But really, what does no big deals even mean?

The phrase, no big deals, is one of the core mottos of The Philadelphia Project. This summer, I had the privilege to be part of the summer intern staff at The Project.

From my understandings, this summer was one of the harder summers when it came to overall smoothness. This summer had a LOT of very quick plan changes.

However, at the end of the day, it wasn’t a big deal. We moved, a lot, we dropped some balls, and we left a few interns behind once or twice; but it wasn’t ever the end of the world.

The Project recognizes that things happen, life happens. Most of the time, what seems like a big deal isn’t that big of a deal once the moment has passed. Because of that, the Project has the NBD’s motto.

This summer was home to an atmosphere where failure was okay. I think that’s what made the difference. At the end of the day, nothing was a life or death matter. If it needed to be corrected; it was fixed without shame or attention brought to the problem. If it was working smoothly; it just kept on chugging along.

I propose we all think about living a life of NBD. A life that’s so free we aren’t stressed over the little, petty, hiccups in the road.

When something could have been a big deal, we laughed it off and remedied the situation. If I learned anything, it’s that even the worst situations can be light-hearted if you are committed to living a life of NBD.

So give it a try. No big deals, one day at a time.