Millimeters and Miles

Molaris dens is Latin for “millstone tooth,” which we commonly refer to as a molar. Human beings have twelve of these type teeth in their mouths, used most often for grinding food down when chewing, and they typically have 4-5 cusps on them.

Molars are typically some of our largest teeth, but even at that, they are measured for length and width in mere millimeters. When it comes to bones in our body, our teeth could be classified within a category of small, but mighty. They don’t take up a lot of space when it comes to the complete picture of our physical presence, and while we certainly would be able to understand their importance to our daily eating habits, it’s easy to forget that they play a role in how we are able to speak, how we are able to drink, our ability to swallow and digest food properly, and in conveying emotions more accurately. I certainly took all of that for granted, until, that is, I was heading back home from Chicago a few weekends ago.

Driving in the car I felt the very first tinges of an ache towards the back of my mouth. I assumed that it might be the fact that I had a crown that was wearing out and told myself that it was a good thing that I already had set up an appointment with my dentist at the end of May to get the thing replaced. By the time I pulled into the driveway of my house, two hours later, the dull ache had turned into a very sharp, recurring pain in my jaw. 

The next morning I got up to a cheek that was starting to swell, and a toothache so excruciating in the back of my mouth that I could not even rest my top teeth on my bottom teeth, let alone bite down on anything without feeling like someone was jamming an icepick in my gums along the left side of my mouth. Even worse, I was starting to get feverish, and my whole head was beginning to throb, so I immediately called my dentist right as the office opened and passionately requested (Read: begged) for an appointment as soon as humanly possible. Luckily, they agreed to get me in the very next day!

After running through a few painful tests, I was sent to an endodontist who identified the fact that one of my molars, way in the back on the left side, had fractured sometime in the past, and now the crack had become infected and was spreading that infection into the gums around the tooth. Unfortunately, no root canal would fix the issue, the tooth would need to be extracted completely…and if the problem were not addressed quickly, the infection could continue to spread throughout the body and cause all kinds of additional pain and recovery.

By the time I found myself in the chair of a local oral surgeon, I was about ready to pull a Tom Hanks from the movie Castaway where he uses nothing but two rocks to knock his own tooth out that had been causing him so much pain. The actual procedure, luckily, was over unbelievably quickly, and with much less drama. After the tooth was removed, and a few days on antibiotics had passed, I was back to feeling human again minus one tooth and appreciating a very important thought:

It is amazing that something so small, measured in mere millimeters, could cause such havoc and inflict such pain when ignored or overlooked.

And isn’t that just the way it is in all of life?

It’s the little things, so often taken for granted, overlooked, discounted or forgotten, that can make or break the biggest moments, opportunities and decisions of our lives.

As I chased that thought around in my now less-throbbing head, I considered every family vacation my wife and I had ever taken our daughters on.

Every year, around late fall, my family and I begin talking about where we would like to go on vacation the next summer. Very often the beach is brought up, but we have also gone to places like Williamsburg, VA, Lake of the Ozarks, Destin, FL, Myrtle Beach, SC, Wisconsin Dells and Gatlinburg, TN, just to name a few locations. No matter the place, the planning always starts with the big picture, large decisions like the final destination, what hotel, resort or home to stay at, what attractions we want to see, what route we will need to take, what day’s off we need to ask for, and so on.

All of these things are obviously important, after all, if you haven’t decided on a destination how will know how to get there, or even know when to stop driving because you have arrived?

However, equally as important are the tiny, but vital, details. 

Can you imagine what would happen if we loaded up the car on the determined date, at the very start of vacation, and starting pounding through the miles…only to realize that no one put gas in the car, the oil never got changed, the tires weren’t rotated and we didn’t pack enough appropriate clothes for the journey?

In short order we would realize that having a big picture destination is important, but we can’t traverse the miles it takes to get there without remembering the absolutely essential little things that give us that ability! Whether you measure the “little things” in millimeters (tooth) or miles (trips), if you make the mistake of ignoring them, your journey to where you really want to go in life can, and likely will, get derailed, and all you’ll end up with is a pounding headache. So….

Where do you want to go in life?

Where do you want to go in your job?

What’s that perfect destination look like in your mind’s eye, where you see yourself joyful, energetic and inspired?

If you don’t spend time thinking about those places, I would strongly exhort you to start. You need to look at the big picture of your life and make some decisions that develops a plan to get there. You need to have discussions with leadership, friends, family and fellow workers about what those places look like, bring them into focus so that you can see the path you need to commit to in order to get there…and then you’ll know when you arrive and you can stop looking for the very next “bigger, better deal”.

Once you have that big vision firmly planted in your mind, you’ve mapped out the course that will need to be traversed to get there and figured out the time frame you think you can live with to get there…you better start thinking about all of the daily, little things that are actually going to make entering that “promised land” not only possible, but that also makes the journey educational, entertaining and energizing.

Close your eyes and imagine it.

Can you visualize that destination? There you are, enjoying what you do, caring about the people that you work alongside, feeling attached to a purpose that is meaningful and personal.

Now, how are you going to get there?

Here are some “little things” to keep at the forefront of your thoughts, rather than letting them get swallowed up in the mad press of all of the stresses, milestones, and deadlines you may be living with in the present. Take a crazy leap of faith and trust me when I say that getting you to that location you long for is much more achievable if you give just as much weight and effort to these small items as you do to the grand vision itself.

SMALL THING #1 – Give yourself a very regular “Attitude Check.”

Having a good, positive attitude seems like such a simple, perhaps even trite, thing to contemplate…and yet, if embracing and exhibiting such an attitude is so simple and too hackneyed a suggestion, why do we seem to wrestle with actually exuding it on a consistent basis specifically at work?

Perhaps you are saying to me right now as you read this, “The reason why it’s hard is because every day is not a great day. You don’t know what kind of frustration I deal with. You don’t know what my job entails, or what kind of hard knocks life has sent my way!”

Of course, you are right, and I don’t advocate being fake, so if you are hurting today, you shouldn’t have to slap a plastic smile on your face and act happy about the pain. 

That being said, when we freely give away our ability to self-determine how we will feel about our circumstances, allowing them to dictate to us our attitudes, then we become slaves entirely to the whim of fate. We no longer control ourselves…our thoughts, will and emotions…and abdicate all power and authority to whatever situation of life we find ourselves in. At that point we are no longer living our own life as much as playing a role that has someone, or something, else writing our lines, determining our character and motivations.

Just like we must develop regular habits of oral hygiene to keep us from toothaches and checking our automobile gas gauges to keep us from losing the power we need to keep moving forward, so too we must learn to make a habit of regularly checking our attitudes. When we allow them to sour us, to cause us headaches, to derail our journey to where we want to be by infecting us with anger, resentment and impatience, then a change must be made!

Martin Seligman’s book Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind presents a good list of filters to consider for just such an attitude check, particularly in the midst of challenging times. Seligman offers the following perspectives:

• Permanence – If things are good (or bad), do you expect them to stay like that for a long time?
• Pervasiveness – If one thing is good (or bad), do you expect everything else to be like that?
• Personalization – If things are good (or bad), who gets the credit (or the blame) – you or someone else?

The reason I find this so important is that these lenses remind us of some very important truths, specifically:

Time and life change without stopping, they are by their very nature transitory, which means difficult moments don’t last forever, times of pain don’t have to mean that our whole lives are nothing but sadness, and blaming other things or people may be a balm to our personal feelings but it does nothing to put us on a path to joy. 

When we don’t take time for introspection and routinely examine our attitudes we can take a millimeter’s worth of ache and turn it into a miles long uphill trip through dark clouds and high winds…all the while cursing nature for our misfortunes instead of extracting the source of the pain and pressing on the gas to power through the turmoil.

When things are going right…check your attitude.

When things are going wrong…check your attitude.

It’s a small thing that makes a huge difference!

SMALL THING #2 – Take the time to help people see in themselves what you see in them.

Caroline McHugh, in her excellent TED Talk titled “The Art of Being Yourself”, said something that I found extremely powerful. 

“But most of us don’t take up nearly the space the universe intended for us. We take up this wee space around our toes, which is why when you see somebody in the full flow of humanity, it’s remarkable. They’re at least a foot bigger in every direction than normal human beings, and they shine. They gleam, they glow. It’s like they’ve swallowed the moon. And all the work I’ve done has led me to believe that individuality really is all it’s cracked up to be.  In fact, people who are frightened to be themselves will work for those who are unafraid.”

That last sentence certainly hits hard.

We work around, and live next to, a very great many people that are genuinely afraid to be themselves, because somewhere along the way someone, or something, convinced them that who they genuinely are is not beneficial, attractive, or valuable.   

What we all need is someone who can come along side of us and tell us not only that they believe IN us, but WHY they choose to consistently do so!

If you are trying to pull someone out of the rut they may be in, if you want to inspire them to reach higher and occupy more of the space that the universe has in mind for them, you could try to say simply, “I believe in you” OR you could say something like this:

“I believe in you because I see in you a fighter that has already overcome tremendous obstacles, and yet who has not let circumstances turn them bitter. I have seen your heart, the way you truly care about the work you do, and why you do it, and I have witnessed your determination to make a difference. You have inspired me, and because of that, I am confident that you will also rise to the next challenge!”

Which statement means more? Which one might be more effective in making a difference in someone’s life?

You may not realize this, because it seems like a small thing, but when you say to someone “Let me tell you what I see in you…” you grab that person’s attention and open a door to experiencing a transformative moment together. Stating what specifically you see in someone, turns the statement “I believe in you” from what could be construed as a hollow platitude into a declaration of what makes them uniquely and powerfully as the person they were meant to be.

You may have heard the statement that life is “a game of inches”, meaning that many times the difference between winning and losing, success and failure, rising or falling can be found in that little bit of extra effort, that small additional drive forward. May I submit to you that effectively inspiring people to see what you see in them can be that millimeter worth of difference that takes them miles into a positive future.

It’s another seemingly minute act that propels those around us towards their life’s destination, and, in the words of Carolyn McHugh, makes people a foot bigger in every direction.

SMALL THING #3 – Remember anyone who has ever invested in you, inspired you, or encouraged you…then return the favor by living a life that represents them well.

Recently, in the weekly leadership meeting I hold here at Pearl Companies, we were discussing the importance of understanding the act of sacrifice. The word itself stems from Latin, the terms sacra and facere, which essentially means “To do something sacred”, and carries with it the idea of exhibiting a divine, or inherently good, quality.

We watched a few clips from movies that had something to say about how powerful sacrifice can be when it comes from those we look to for leadership, including the last 10 minutes of “Saving Private Ryan”. In those closing scenes, Captain Miller, played by Tom Hanks, gives his life to secure a small bridge, and in so doing ensures that Private Ryan will get a chance to go home to his family. With his dying breath, Captain Miller tells Ryan to “Earn this”, meaning all of the sacrifices of the men who had given their life to find and rescue him, and then the scene cuts to a much older James Ryan, standing in front of Miller’s gravestone. The war is many years in the past, a pained look crosses Ryan’s aged face, and he speaks to the spirit of the dead man who gave all he had so that this very moment would be possible. He says:

“My family is with me today. They wanted to come with me. To be honest with you, I wasn't sure how I'd feel coming back here. Every day I think about what you said to me that day on the bridge. And I've tried to live my life the best I could. I hope that was enough. I hope that at least in your eyes, I've earned what all of you have done for me.”

Perhaps you have been fortunate enough that someone took the time to believe in you… and spoke those words of life I referenced in point 2 above, “This is what I see in you…”, or lived an example in front of you that you admired and desired to emulate. Maybe someone ahead of you blazed a trail, drew a new path, and/or made personal sacrifices so that you could benefit and receive the reward. It could be that an individual along the path to your destination made you think, challenged your mindset, planted new ideas in your head, made you see the world differently or just made you want to be a better version of yourself.

Whether you have changed a millimeter or a mile in your personal journey because of someone else’s presence in your life, the challenge will always be to “EARN IT”…to live differently, and honor their influence by continuing to grow in light of their contributions to who you are, and who you now have a chance to be.

So many people of influence pass from this world with no marble monuments constructed to memorialize their efforts, guidance, standards or leadership…instead what they did and said continues on in the lives of those they personally touched. We, the touched who remain after they have gone by, have a responsibility to keep passing down what we have seen and heard, adding to it through the now elevated way we live our own lives.

As the late great poet, John Donne, once wrote, “No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main”. We all end up adding to each other’s journeys, hopefully for good and not ill, our own trajectory affecting another’s, and having our influence reflected and transmitted throughout the people and years that we pass by and through.

If you have been strengthened and developed by someone else, don’t forget to magnify their efforts by showing the best parts of all you have learned, sometimes with words and always with your actions. Doing so is to tap into something sacred…something small but inherently good.

SMALL THING #4 – That thing you have always been wanting to do or say but have been putting off…you know what I am talking about…yeah, you need do and/or say it already!

This “small thing” is one that I continue to wrestle with to this very day.

I recently read an article in Inc. magazine that said every year only 8% of the people that set significant goals for themselves to attain over the course of the next 12 months ever achieve any kind of progress on them. Ouch.

Personally, I have had a few consistently recurring goals set for myself for decades…and I still am no closer to attaining them now that I am rapidly approaching fifty years of age. It could be that I am alone in this frustrating bad habit, but I somewhat doubt it.

I’m betting there are several people reading this right now that as soon as you read this last point you instantly thought of that thing, perhaps more than one, that has been nagging you for a long time, and that you have continually put off for any number of reasons you have rationalized in your mind. Pick your poison.

• Ask for that raise/promotion
• Go back to school
• Learn a new craft
• Play an instrument
• Speak in front of a crowd
• Act in a play
• Sing a solo
• Write a song
• Ask someone on a date
• Ask someone to marry you
• Tell someone you love them
• Speak up in a meeting
• Spend more time with family/friends
• Ask someone for forgiveness
• Forgive someone who hurt you
• Look for that new job
• Start a business
• Travel more, see the world
• Run in a race
• Start a blog
• Write a book
• Learn a new language

I could obviously go on ad infinitum.

There’s that thing that you have been promising yourself that you would do, that desire that burns inside of you, but that you always find a way to convince yourself you are simply too busy or too tired to actually accomplish. You give yourself an out by saying that you don’t possesses the ability, the confidence or the qualifications to fully pursue it. You excuse your lack of follow through by telling yourself the chances of completion are slim, and you’ve tried something similar in the past with less than stellar results, so why attempt it again this time?

I know this inner-monologue well…because it’s a conversation I have had with myself multiple times!

The problem ultimately is that fear of failure, of perceived inadequacies, and of other’s lack of understanding can make us spend countless years suffering a type of hollow yearning, assuming outcomes that never get confirmed or dispelled.  

The difference between people who do the very things that we long to do is that they measure the distance between “I want to do…” and “I did it…” in millimeters, not miles. 

Instead of insurmountable odds stacked against completion, they see ways over, under, around or through all opposition, including that nagging negative voice within their own head. If things don’t work out the way they want after they have finished the work, spoken up, or taken the chance, they merely use it as more fuel to the fire of a “Keep Trying” mentality.

I haven’t mastered this “small thing.” I haven’t yet written the book that I have had spinning in my head since I was in my twenties, and so I have lived with the dull ache of seeing where I WANT to be as compared with where I COULD be for the last almost 30 years. That’s on me.

In short…don’t be me, be better.

If watching my first-born daughter graduate from High School recently has taught me anything it’s that life is going to keep moving forward relentlessly and we can either use the time we have to the utmost, or we can be spectators of those that will do so. I want my children to master this particular “small thing”, get out of the stands and get in the game…and I am still hopeful that maybe I can show them that it doesn’t matter how old you are, you can always change your ways, suit up and score your own, long delayed, victory. 

This will hopefully be the year that you and I both take strides to move towards our goals, no matter if it’s a millimeter or a mile at a time!

Alvin Toffler is the American futurist that is responsible for writing such globally influential books as Future Shock and The Third Wave, foreseeing the rise of social and technological advancements like the prosumer movement, cloning, personal computers, the internet and mobile communications. He was a man that clearly saw the world, and life, in big picture visions and grandiose destinations, having the ability to look down the road at where things were headed and then articulate them in a way that made millions of others see it as well.

He once wrote, “You’ve got to THINK about big things while you’re DOING small things, so that all the small things go in the right direction.” (Emphasis mine)

Toffler is simply confirming exactly what we have contemplating this entire time, simply that if you want to find yourself in a place where you are living your best life…one of consequence and purpose…there are two crucial components to making it happen.

1. Keep your mind focused on the big vision, the journey’s end where it all comes together after traversing all of the miles needed to get there. Don’t lose sight of it and don’t get discouraged by the distance or the obstacles in your path.
2. However…keep your heart from neglecting all of the small things that get you through those miles and past those obstacles, sometimes even if it’s only millimeter by millimeter. Never forget that small, but inherently important, things done consistently make the journey meaningful and serve to make us better, more gracious people when finally arrive.

No matter where you find yourself in your life, it’s worth considering the millimeters and the miles today. It’s the best way to keep taking meaningful small steps that add up to a fulfilling and joyful course through life, aligning our heads and hearts on the most important things and the most worthwhile progress.