The devil is not in the details; God is. One of the advantages of being over 60 is that age affords perspective, and all the teenage angst over am-I-good-enough, will-she-like-me, oh-no-the-test-is-TODAY is long over. This perspective tells me two things of which I am absolutely convinced. One is that little things are important. The other is that the most important thing we have is time. I just finished reading The Little Book of Common Sense Investing by John Bogle, whose long-term study shows that having a whole lot of money to invest means a lot less than investing over a long time and doing it sensibly and without the excess of greed. A smaller return by owning shares of ALL stocks to minimize risk, avoiding investment costs, and holding everything for a long time beats all other strategies. Once you don’t care about making a million by day trading, searching for the next killer pick for this month, or giving all your money to someone who charges you to invest your money, you can make a million or more.
Enough about money… I said God is in the details, and that deserves some explanation. It’s not just that Jesus was born in a manger, the smallest, least important place ever, he never led an army or held an office, and was not even comfortable with the title “Messiah,” because of political connotations, preferring “Ben Adam,” or “Son of Man.” Nor is it just William Blake’s exhortation to “see the world in a grain of sand and a heaven in a wildflower,” or Tennyson’s study of the flower in the crannied wall. By Divine Design, I see that good little things done over a long time amount to great consequences. It’s all in understanding the details.
Read Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Outliers, which shows that ordinary people (and the Beatles were ordinary people) who practice for 10,000 hours (their time spent in German cabarets) will become remarkable musicians. Even Mozart was an ordinary composer until he put in his 10,000 hours. I’ve written about this before, but good things sometimes bear repeating.
Log on to TED Talks and watch the short video by Amy Cuddy on how little things like posture, power poses and self-talk can change not only the testosterone and cortisol ratio in your body that makes you strong or stressed, it also results in a better, more successful YOU. It doesn’t really hit home until Amy tells her own remarkable story two-thirds of the way through the video. If you watch nothing else all week, watch this. (Amy Cuddy: Your body language shapes who you are) Our bodies were simply designed this way. Fake strength until you make it; make it until you become it.
Exercise? I’m finding that I don’t need to be a marathoner, and my knees probably wouldn’t take that stress anyway. It is still remarkable after a month of slacking off because of eye surgery, that if I just go back to thirty minutes of stretching, breathing and weights in the morning, followed by thirty minutes on a treadmill watching TED talks, I not only feel better and have great energy, I am alert rather than tired, kinder (or at least less crabby), and more able to write. I will never look like a football player, have six-pack abs, or be able to dunk a basketball, but stretching, breathing, and walking for thirty years has made me feel well and kept me from getting soft and fat. That is enough. It’s actually a big thing when I look around me at those who struggle to get through the day or go up a flight of stairs. I’m not bragging since I have so many other weaknesses; I’m observing. Little things done over an extended period of time make a big difference.
About two weeks ago I saw Warren Buffet on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and I was amazed at his attitude and answers to Stewart’s most challenging economic questions. In short, the wise, smiling man, perhaps the best investor of all time, delivered a truly optimistic message: Of course there are bubbles and even recessions, but that’s just an opportunity. That’s the time to BUY. The point is that the general trend is upward. It is all done little by little over many years.
That’s how we do everything. It’s the message of Anne Lamott’s great book on writing, Bird by Bird, which I’ve recommended before. What is new for me is that I see this “Little Things Are Great – in the long run” is by design. If you write, it takes at least a couple of years to turn out a good novel. If you pray for something good for someone else, it may take a couple of years for the miracle to appear (unless you are Jesus and I am not). If you want to be a great musician/composer/free throw shooter/landscape painter/teacher/parent…ANYTHING – it will probably take ten thousand hours. If you repeat affirmations, it will still take a couple of years for that little change to take effect. My only suggestion would be to make sure you choose something you love to do, because 10,000 hours doing something you hate is no fun and not good for your psyche. The testosterone/cortisol ratio will not be in your favor.
How amazing this world design is. Because of this design, great things are available to all of us by doing little things for a long time. Everyone is familiar with the adage, “The devil is in the details,” meaning it may be the little, unnoticed thing that causes a problem, but most people probably do not know that the original saying was most likely by Gustave Flaubert, “Le bon Dieu est dans le détail.” It’s not the devil in the detail; it’s the good God.
kurthaberl 
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