Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar

In concert with the title of her book, Sugar’s columns are peppered with references to small, everyday things that can nevertheless change a person’s attitude or even the course of their lifetime. The motif of tiny beautiful things appears most explicitly in Strayed’s advice to her younger self, when she was dealing with drug addiction and felt too valueless to deserve the simple purple-balloon gift offered to her by a little girl. While the younger Strayed felt unworthy of such a gesture, Sugar advises her that she still has the “right to such tiny beautiful things” regardless of what she has done (352). This shares the message that all people are worthy of redemption and a second chance, as well as that some of the joys and distinctions in life emerge from small-scale objects and events rather than the grand ones society traditionally values.

Strayed demonstrates the potential profoundness of tiny, beautiful things in the image of the yard-sale toddler dress her mother picked up for her when Strayed was uncertain she wanted to have children. Still, she was drawn to the precious object, quaintly sentimental in its red velvet with a white lace collar. While Strayed’s mother was able to acknowledge the dress as “the sweetest thing” and intuited that Strayed should have it (321), Strayed was initially dismissive.