Exactitude in small matters…

Exactitude in small matters is the very soul of discipline. I didn’t say it, Joseph Conrad did in perhaps his most obscure work, The Secret Sharer. If you haven’t read yet, go ahead; I’ll wait.

I just finished mowing the lawn. I hate how much time I spend beating back nature, but since I live in the City of Englewood and they have all these laws and such, I gotta mow the lawn. Usually, I mow, then trim along the sidewalk, weed the mulch beds, snip back the shrubs a bit. I’m pretty good at taking care of the “small matters” that say discipline. I don’t do these small things because I care what my neighbors think, but because it is part of maintaining a lawn. It disciplines the craft. It disciplines me.

But I’ve been busy lately and it’s been raining, so I fire up the mower, turn it up to the rabbit symbol and run over the lawn as fast as I can. I’ve got deadlines.

I did the same thing this morning and satisfied once more with my domination over nature, I looked back at the freshly mowed, slightly wet lawn and did not get that sense of satisfaction that I usually enjoy after mowing. And then it occurred to me why that was.

The weeds had grown over the mulch and the grass was not crisp at the sidewalk line.

And it occurs to me that the difference between “getting the lawn mowed” and “mowing the lawn” is the details that surround the broad strokes of the mower. And then it dawns on me that the same thing applies to what we all do here.

Exactitude in small matters is what separates the blogger from the writer, the singer from the artist, the desktop publisher from the graphic designer, the shooter from the photographer, the pundit from the journalist.

Choose to be great. Choose exactitude in small matters.