Today I fell victim to a classic blunder. I got caught in the details and forgot to look at the big picture. Specifically, this was for a work thing… a project that I’ve been working on, and working on, and working on. Each time I think it’s about to move off my plate, it stays. It would be enough to drive a person to drink, except that I’ve still got 9 days left without alcohol. Ditto the chocolate, ice cream and potato chips. I tried to make coconut flour (non-grain) pancakes, but apparently pancakes really rely on high glycemic ingredients to make them happen. I knew this, instinctively, and yet it seemed like it was worth a try.
But, I digress. I know, based on experience that at work I’m going to be evaluated on the details. And, based on experience, I have a roadmap of what details to focus on, so that’s what I did. But for every needle that I found and smugly congratulated myself on removing, I made one critical mistake. I forgot to step ten feet back and look at the whole haystack. While the issue with my haystack wasn’t foundational, it was fairly glaring, if only I’d looked. It altered the impression I’d worked for. It was taking the time to put on make-up and actually blow dry your hair, and then meeting your nemesis with spinach in your teeth. In that moment, I felt like that spinach was going to overshadow all the hard work and long hours I’d put in.
You can exercise every day for six months. And I swear, if just one day you decide you’d rather watch a Good Wife marathon? Square one. It’s like your body gets amnesia. It takes weeks to lose 5 pounds, but in a 4-day all-inclusive vacation you can somehow gain twice that. And they say that if you give in to your child’s whining one in ten times, you’ve lost the war. If one out of ten times, you’re just dead tired, or just can’t form the words of the bedtime argument one more time, it’s back to the beginning. How is this fair? If I’m getting it right 80% of the time, isn’t that pretty good? Doesn’t that deserve a little recognition? Why does the 20% weigh so heavily? Or even just 10%? I’m honor roll here, people! If I’m not going to get a plaque, can we at least agree on a ribbon?
Part of the weighted impact of the 10% flop rate is evolution, of course, reminding us that our ancestors couldn’t have an 80/20, or even a 90/10 policy when dealing with saber tooth tigers. It was a good policy, then. Get it right the first time, or, literally, die trying. Luckily life isn’t, in general, as catastrophic day-to-day in the 21st century. Yet we’re still programmed to hold onto those negatives while discounting the positives. It’s unlikely that the negatives will kill us anymore, but they still feel heavy. And so it’s easier to just hang up our running shoes and tell ourselves that our “happy” weight is our current weight, and who really wants to be counting calories, anyway? Did any child really enter therapy as an adult because bedtime slipped to 9pm now and then? Keep your ribbon. We’re doing okay.
As Mel Brooks said, ‘Life is a play. We’re unrehearsed.’ It’s never going to go smoothly, because we’re winging this life thing. And if you’re not winging it, please pretend you are. It’ll make me feel better. Maybe, when I miss either the big picture or the details, because let me assure you, both happen in pretty much equal measure for me, maybe instead of thinking of it as blowing my lines, I can think of it as improv. And with improv, a really great scene can build out of seeming chaos.
Our ancestors had to sweat the details, because their big picture was now. Our big picture is a little more forgiving, and our details less dire. We can lace up those running shoes again, even though our lungs protest and our feet drag, because we can see the big picture, but we can take a day (or a season) off because we know details tend to work themselves out when we have a solid perspective. We need both, but we also need to cut ourselves a break. And guess what? My big issue today? Totally resolved itself by close of business. For the most part. Which is good. Because now I can get a good night’s sleep before finding out tomorrow what I messed up today.