Maybe you’ve heard the saying, “The devil’s in the details”? It probably means something like whatever details you overlook in whatever you’re doing will come back to bite you. That saying is actually a corruption of an earlier motto, attributed to Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880): “Le bon Dieu est dans le detail” (“God is in the details”). Evidently, I prefer the earlier form of the idiom. Although everyone’s life experience is replete with examples of the ways in which this saying proves true, the great temptation remains to focus our attention on the big items we see playing out on life’s stage all around us. These critical issues are the ones that grab our focus and demand our attention in our careers, our relationships, and our personal condition. These are the both ‘important’ and ‘urgent’ tasks that inhabit Stephen R. Covey’s “Quadrant One.” What you won’t find in “Quadrant One” are things like success, intimacy, peace, harmony, and, ultimately, happiness.
Do we really need to ask why a preoccupation with the big issues eventually leads to failure and unhappiness in careers, in relationships, and in regard to your personal health and well-being? When it comes to your health, what happens when you wait until things get really bad (a crisis) before looking for treatment? Don’t you then find yourself racing to beat the pathology to the finish line? The closer you allow issues to come to the tipping point (that point at which failure is unavoidable), the more important and urgent the need to engage in corrective action becomes, and the lesser your chances of meeting that challenge successfully. At the same time, the more your resources are dedicated to handling any crisis, the greater the chances will be for other issues to approach their tipping points.
Conserving your energies to handle the big issues does little to address or solve them; in fact, the approach that focuses only (or mainly) on the important things risks creating an error cascade. Let me explain. An error cascade begins with just one overlooked detail. When that detail goes wrong, it becomes an attention grabber (Quadrant One again). While your attention is focused on taking care of that one errant detail, you ignore several other details that are needing your attention. As your attention is drawn away in a rapidly-increasing complex of (relatively) minor failures, your capacity for reacting to the situation erodes until you are unable to stop a catastrophic collapse of the system. The disasters at Three Mile Island and, to an even greater degree, at Chernobyl are graphic cases in point.
As early as the 14th Century, we find the following poem:
For Want of a Nail
For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
For want of a rider the battle was lost.
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.
No, paying attention to what’s ‘most important’ may be ‘common sense,’ but it’s also a recipe for failure. Success comes from recognizing, heart and soul, that “God is in the details.” In fact, take care of the details, and the ‘big issues’ will take care of themselves. The wisdom of this approach has been proven many times over. Taking a detail-oriented approach to your job may provoke ridicule from some co-workers, but it will certainly produce the kinds of quality results that any reasonably healthy management team would find difficult to ignore. Paying close attention to your communication and the needs and wants of your spouse or partner cannot help but improve the depth of intimacy between you. Paying attention to your diet, exercise, rest, reading, recreation, prayer, meditation, and all the other things that go to make up a physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually healthy person will certainly give a significant boost to your quality of life.
At midlife, when all the old paradigms of adulthood seem to be breaking down, you have the perfect opportunity to change the way you ‘do business’ — your ‘standard operating procedure.’ Start with your greatest problem area: career, relationship, or your personal health and well-being. Instead of trying to manage whatever you perceive as your biggest issue, try focusing your attention on the details of the situation. What little things are you ignoring or neglecting? What details are you overlooking? What are three little issues that you could take care of right away? What three things you could do today to address these little issues? Will you commit to accomplishing these three things today?
Don’t forget that creating serious change requires assistance. All of us have mastered the art of self-delusion. Only when you invite someone else to ‘champion’ your plan in with you will you have the support and accountability that you’ll need to be able to change your focus effectively. Remember the Bible story of Elijah:
The LORD said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by.” Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave.
As life progresses, you’re going to be faced with the equivalent of whirlwind, earthquake and fire, but success, intimacy, health, happiness and your Higher Power will be found in none of them. It’s in the still small voice of those tasks and details that may very well seem most unimportant and most beneath your knowledge, skills and dignity, that your Power will be found. For, after all, Flaubert was right: God is in the details!
H. Les Brown, MA, CFCC
Copyright © 2010 H. Les Brown
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Tags: career, communication, crisis, details, health, humility, integrity, love, midlife, Midlife Mastery, Spirituality