Let’s Be Wary of Small Errors

“Failure is not a single, cataclysmic event. Failure is a few errors in judgement, repeated every day.”_Jim Rohn

I once read an article written by the author of ‘Willpower Doesn’t Work,’ on how fatal the consequences of certain little lapses in life can turn out to be. 

Ben Hardy narrated the sad occurrence that happened in 1979 due to a little error of just two degrees. An airplane that was well-loaded with people began flying two degrees off the right coordinates.

Eventually, those tiny degrees of errors put the plane away from its desired destination by more than forty-five kilometers apart in the course of its journey.

Worse still, the unexpected destination was nothing like the sightseeing adventures the passengers had originally intended as the plane flew straight toward Mount Erebus: the dangerous zone of active volcanic pulse.

Long story short: the mere two degrees of errors led to the fatal end of more than 255 lives aboard. A simple oversight started as something trivial but it ended as an unforgettable tragedy because it was left uncorrected minutes after minutes. 

To quote the words of Ben Hardy from that painful story: “Small things—if not corrected—become big things, always.”

The above narrative is a negative analogy human life. Small errors of judgment that continue uncorrected will accumulate into a big problem, every time. 

However, on the positive side, small wise choices we make every day, if they continue unblemished will accumulate into something great, without fail.

Now, the essence of this article is to goad us to examine our lives for any such error that could give birth to outcomes of lethal consequences down the line.

So let’s think deeper to ascertain that we have a proper-control system to steer us toward a desirable destination of health, spirituality and fulfillment at the end of our brief sojourn on earth.

You should never be too careless with little lapses in your life. Read the following the words of Alan S. Kesselheim, the author of ‘Let Them Paddle’ to get this point direct from his astute observation of human history. He said: 

“Small mistakes, the lack of care, little accidents, and somewhere a tipping point is passed and things go badly wrong. Expedition history brims with tragedies built out of incremental missteps.”

Finally, we need to understand that little leaks can sink even the biggest ship. Therefore let’s be proactive to patch any weak spots that could degenerate into a leak, and subsequently impair the voyage of our life.