Winston Churchill said “A man is about as big as the things that make him angry.”

Granted, the Sky Garden at Selby Gardens is big. But as I drive up Orange Avenue each morning, I see only big buildings along the commercial corridor of U.S. 41/Tamiami Trail. The shortest nearby building is three stories.

Selby Gardens visitors’ biggest complaint is parking. We are proposing a beautiful facility with enough spaces that replaces sand, shell and pockmarked pavement with lovely gardens.

That Churchill quote is one of my mantras. I try to get angry only about truly big things. In Sarasota, there are children who don’t eat except at school. Their parents abuse them, they can’t read, they’ve never seen our gorgeous beaches. There are people dying of horrible diseases, little affordable housing for workers, and the threat of global warming.

Is a building that allows us to serve our guests really worth getting so angry about? Especially when it replaces sad dirt lots and comes with a twelve-foot landscaped recreation trail and signage forbidding people from turning left to go down Orange Avenue?

I, for one, think the saddest thing here is the amount of anger over something so small.

Emily C. Lane is director of development communications for Marie Selby Botanical Gardens.