“It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important.”
I was watching the latest Sherlock Holmes film recently and marveled at how brilliantly the game of chess was written and conceived at the film’s climax. It reminded me though of a discovery I made about myself years before…
Recalling how I used to play chess, back in the day, itstruck me that I always played pretty much the same way. No matter how often I told myself to hold my queen back, think a move ahead, secure defenses and retain control of the middle of the board, I didn’t. I’dsee a hole in the opposition’s defense and drive my queen right into it. Depending on the skill level ofmy opponent, this would either provide the element of surprise (and my victory) or prove the deathof me.
From this experience though, I began to look at the rest ofmy life. How did I clean up my apartment? Make a meal? Write a letter? Prepare for anaudition? I began to be appalled that I was approaching pretty much everythingin the same way. Initial excitement, send in the big guns, win or lose based onthe strength and experience of the opposing force. Think about it. Cooking forsomeone who has a sensitive palate is far harder than cooking for someone withno taste at all. Writing an application letter to become a plumber is going to requireless formal writing prowess than one to become an English professor’s researchassistant. Cleaning your apartment for a visit from a friend is less stressfulthan cleaning for the queen. And so on. But because you so often can just ‘get by’, doesn’t mean you should just get by….Quality is entirely controllableand should never be compromised. Unless you are aiming for a career of mediocrity, that is.
When I examined my preparation habits for auditions,I foundthat I would pick up the script at the last minute and read the lines in manydifferent ways. I would yell and scream and whisper and cry, and eventually…. becomebored. Just like cooking. Or cleaning. Or writing application letters. Orplaying chess. Even in situations where I had ample time to prepare, I didn’tknow what to do and yet, I blamed the game, the recipe, the job or theaudition. Never, did I think, to blame my lack of training or experience.
In time I realized that each activity in life was amicrocosm of the way I approached life in general. And if I honed in onperfecting just one of these, then, like altering a microscopic strand of DNA,I could alter the whole being.
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