Millimeters Matter

As I was hoping that everyone has experienced safe travels during the holiday, I noticed something. Showers.

You must get annoyed when I purposefully make your head spin when trying to connect things that have no business being connected. I have a plan. Take some aspirin and let me finish, please.

There is always a difference between your in-home shower and the one available to you on on-the-road. Sometimes, it’s more enjoyable and sometimes less. That is not the point here, just an explanation as to where travel connects to showers.  Feel better?

Anyway, when I got home, I once again noticed that the temperature adjustment on my plumbing is made with nearly imperceptible movements. I can travel from being a towel-wrapped zombie looking at a scalding, steam-generating flow of water to a minor character in the movie Frozen with a simple microscopic twist of the faucet.

Of course, true to the considerable braids of my internal thought engine, I started to think about life in general, not just life in the shower. 

Here’s what I came up with.

If I want the shower to be temperature perfect, I will need to spend a little time making minute adjustments.  Those millimeters matter in profound ways.  Is life any different?

If I want a closer approximation to what I would consider a good and righteous life, I will need to correct many things. I repeat. Many things.

One of my favorite quotes reminds me that, “We become the decisions we make.”

This refers not only to major choices but perhaps more importantly (I would argue, certainly) all the seemingly insignificant decisions as well. Each affirmation determines a defined direction of travel. Each negation does the same.

• Relationships of any kind rarely start with a bang. The process moves quietly as it meanders along a path created directly by the results produced when each participant exercises choices. Each small yes, every tiny no, together with all movements toward and away from this common path determine whether we travel together or apart. 
• Maybe love at first sight exists. But that love is emotional. So is puppy love and even love based only on what someone else does for us. Looking and feeling grand and all-encompassing, it fills us but only for a while. 
• Real love is a choice. It demands a commitment. It insists that decisions create self-sacrificial actions that say, “YOU are more important.” It lives and breathes on a common road shared by both even to a point where some irritations might (will) eventually become fond memories.

A good and lasting community does not happen by accident but is created through years of decision-based give and take, we versus me, us versus them, serve versus being served.

Each millimeter of ground is captured in a way that says, YOU matter. This new common ground is kept for as long as all parties truthfully believe and act in ways that prove that "YOU" truly do matter. This road stays clean, safe, and beautiful when our nearly indiscernible actions continue to put the other first. Because it is a shared path, there is little room for entitlement, judgment, or selfishness.

Given that the calendar has turned, many people will make traditional resolutions. Those will be things like,

• I am going to lose 100 pounds this year.
• I am going to quit smoking.
• I am going to exercise twice a day.

Most of us will make grand resolutions such as these. But, the idea of grand change is doomed to fail if we can’t listen to the minor (nearly invisible) choices made all day long.

My form of New Year Resolution is called The Word of the Year. This is a word that will surround me in various ways throughout the next 365 days.

This year’s word is millimeter. 

I hope (again) to find a clean, safe, and beautiful path to share with you and others by paying attention to each choice presented to me, no matter how small. I will be continuously reminded that insignificant decisions are not insignificant. They can build others up or they can put them down. It doesn't take much imagination to see which way is the righteous path.

Happy New Year!

"But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere." James 3:17

"Slowing down enables you to act in a high quality way. 
Kind rather than curt. Polished rather than sloppy.
It's hard to be thoughtful when you're in a rush."
James Clear, 1-2-3 Newsletter: 1/30/21