The devil is in the details; so is the divine.
In other words, microcosmic stuff matters — atoms, quarks, corners, specks, chips, flakes.
It must; it’s everywhere, the particulate.
Recently, we installed dark hardwood floors in our home. Suddenly we notice tiny bits of white stuff — flakes, chips, particles — on the floor, everyday! Was the wood magnetized? Was it sucking white stuff out of the air?
Nope, it was always there, the small pieces — tracked in from the outside, falling off our shoes, the litter from things dropped in the kitchen, the tiny residuals from snacks eaten in the family room — we just didn’t see it in the former, light carpet.
Yuck!
What to do? Vacuum more, sweep more, dust more; otherwise, we are living in a trash dump.
I’m currently building a wall at the front of the house. Millimeters matter. If the first course of block isn’t level, the next course won’t be and the error will worsens as I go up.
But, fortunately, this think concerning detail all works in the opposite direction too. Sweep everyday, adjust the level constantly, pay attention to detail and we then live with the good, clean, safe, healthy and beautiful — constantly.
I recently had to have a potentially hurtful conversation with someone. I suffered — for several weeks — as I literally extruded the right words from my brain, finessed the right tones out of the air and perfected a perfectly efficacious linguistic and proxemic demeanor.
It worked, the conversation; it went well; it had the desired result, because I had paid attention to detail.
Today, I’ll bring to exact level some decomposed granite in the backyard to prep for some beautiful wedge shaped stone pavers that will make up a new circular patio. Tomorrow I’ll order eleven new double paned windows for the house, measured to an eighth inch, for a precise, weather tight fit. And then in two months, I’ll do a bigger thing — I’ll retire from a profession I’ve practiced for thirty years.
And when I retire, I’ll do that carefully too. I’ll handle my people carefully, my precious people carefully, with finely measured responses and with finely tuned and bubble-leveled affirmations — as I have learned to do with everything.
The molecular matters.
Slivers and morsels and smithereens and iotas matter — especially when it come to each other.
Thrive! 