Mastering the Art of Detail: A Journey from the Visible to the Unseen
In the artisan's realm, my brother and I discovered early on that if you neglect the unseen intricacies that are invisible to all, you will not care for details at all. In life, a disregard for the minutiae breeds a lack of appreciation for details altogether.
Attention to detail is a very subjective matter in nature. What are "the details" to begin with? Even more important, what are the details that are worth paying attention to? Some of these questions need to be asked before paying attention to the "details."
At least in my case and probably for any semi-perfectionist person out there, leaving some details unattended can be pretty stressful. It has become apparent to me that many of the details I pay attention to are not really valued by others, especially when there is a project where you are trying to control costs($) or your wife just wants you to "get it done" some details are not worth paying that much attention to.
Now, if you live by the maxim of "perfection in everything," you will succumb to the inevitable fate of failure. We all fail at some point or constantly. That leads us to the crossroads of "What details are worth paying attention to."
I think that anything public or visible to others is worth paying above-average attention to. Just because something is visible to others does not make it worth all our attention, but it does convey us doing a good job.
For example, you aim for good results in your work, express reasonable public thoughts, be a good neighbor, show respect to your wife, honor your father and mother, etc. All of these merit above-average attention. Anything that won't jeopardize your life but will enhance it belongs in this category.
The second category is the unseen or invisible details that only we know about but have a long-term effect on our lives and have the potential to ruin us. In carpentry, this can be the backing of a piece of furniture, the joinery you decide to use, or the level of polishing you do. To the untrained eye or average Joe, all these are not that important, but to the one who is evaluating your knowledge and worthiness, those details are all they need to know about you.
Examples of the unseen details can be how you treat your wife and kids in your house, your diet, your physical health, your spiritual health, dealing with old emotional wounds, your integrity, etc. All these are fundamental for our long-term well-being, but we do not care for them as much as we care for the public details, and even worse, we do not at least do our best to prioritize them or even start to give them importance. Well, at least not until it is too late, and they have already left us with an everlasting public scar that we will need to carry with us all our lives.
The "experts" that will judge us for these "unseen details" can be our parents or parents-in-law, our wife, our close friends, our sons and daughters, and most important of all, God. To this last expert, "God," details reveal our heart and desire to do things in a perfect way; even if attaining perfection may be impossible, it is through the details that He (and we) can know how much we really tried. One might say, the "heart" behind a person's motive.
In the artisan's realm, my brother and I discovered early on that if you neglect the unseen intricacies that are invisible to all, you will not care for details at all. In life, a disregard for the minutiae breeds a lack of appreciation for details altogether.
My brother Jose was primarily responsible for this one!
Until the next one,
Javier