“Come on! It doesn’t matter!” – a phrase you’ve heard all your life. Maybe you’ve even said this to yourself in different phases of your past. But have you thought about why this thought even arises? It hints that you are about to take a step that you don’t normally identify yourself with. But does it really have no effect on your life, as it seems to be the case? Can it always be the wrong step? Let’s find out, cogently!
One of the biggest discoveries we make relatively late is that having a piece of information and understanding what this piece of information implies; are two very different animals. It’s very common to believe that once you’ve bought a book, you possess the knowledge you need. Similarly, when you’ve actually read the book, you’ve understood what it implies in its entirety.
Now, what does that have to do with the “Everything mattering or not?” Hmmm… let’s dig deep. Having the book in possession certainly implies that you have a lot of potential right there in your hands but the only way to access this potential is by reading it! And how do you perform the act of reading?
Open the book, turn the first page, read; then turn on the second, the third… and onwards till you make a decision to stop reading it. It could be that you’ve other things to do on your day, or you read the number of pages you intended to or maybe you simply tired yourself out and were done for the day.
While most of you probably wouldn’t finish the book in one go (depends on the kind of book you’re really reading), the answer to the question, “When will you finish reading it?” totally depends on when do you choose to pick it up again. This is a decision that appears evident and crystal clear, which is going to determine how fast you get to the goal of reading that book or even finishing that book or not.
But did you see the other small quants of decisions you made before and after this bigger visible decision? That minuscule decision of turning the next page, the decision to disconnect your thoughts from the rest of the world and a decision to absorb all that is written on that page? Also, what these small decisions mean is that simultaneously you did not choose to sleep, dance, talk or eat. In short, you also made minuscule decisions about what not to do at the same time.
What does that tell you? Every slight movement cast a vote for the larger visible action you performed. If it was taken in the direction of reading it counted for reading and if not, then it was counted for something else. But hey! It was always counted! There was no void, no escape route where a tiny action was not accounted for. To put it up in a few words: Everything matters, everything counts!
Now that was pretty easy to comprehend what it implies for a ‘simple task’ of reading a book. But isn’t this the case for the rest of our life activities?
The ideas you identify with, the people you associate with or the organizations you support; are all built on these tiny little decisions being made every moment.
The decision to text a person, the act to respond, the manner of conducting the conversation, and the attention you pay while listening all count towards the relationship you have with this person. What this also means is that you are not conducting the conversation with another one (at the same instance)!
This can be extended to the compromises you make on small acts that are piling up to mean something as well as small learnings your brain is storing up on a really complex topic.
What this also implies is when you didn’t choose something, were lazy, decided to ignore, gave up on a tiny moment thinking “…it doesn’t really matter…”, you cast votes on the opposite side.
Now comes the question: can a step taken consciously always lead to desired results? Yes and no. Confused?
The decision to read 10 pages a day will certainly lead to finishing reading the book. But what you’ll find out at the end of the book might not be what you hoped to find. So in a way you didn’t really get what you desired, but rather you made a new discovery. This book isn’t what you thought it was. Now, this can be at times disappointing, at times worth more than you hoped for; because you can’t assume to have known the whole truth beforehand!
But even this movement towards discovering your truth needed you to take those initial steps.
To sum it up visibly bigger goals aren’t achieved overnight, great relationships don’t seem to be built in a jiffy; nor do they seem lost with minor errors. But beyond our level of comprehension, the gears of motion are ticking slowly towards an outcome. Your actions compound and by the time the result is visible, enough of them have made a mark for the entire picture to be visible.
In the end, it all mattered, didn’t it?
good one 🙂