Attention to Detail

I'm not proud of this but I'll share because I think it's important to realize flawed things about ourselves & turn our sight to a God that has no flaw.

So I head to a class that seems optional to me at this point in the semester since everything that has counted for a grade is now completed. Against my college urge to skip it, I go.

Today we were talking about negotiation. He begins with a blunt, "raise your hand if you are in a relationship". Seriously?! Can you make the single life a little less glamorous, please? I was seriously so in shock at his question, I barely even internalized it enough to react had I needed to raise my hand anyway. This was such a simple question but it really bothered me, the way he so non-chalantly asked it.

After a grueling discussion on conflict and negotiation in relationships, which I quietly excluded myself from, we were split into pairs & given a paper with directions not to show anyone else. Each person in the pairing was given a different scenario or "role" to step into argue for and we were to find weak points in the opposing argument/role to argue against.

My role was one of a research biologist. I was asked to aid the government in developing a synthetic vapor that can help neutralize the nerve gas that has sprung a leak and is anticipated to kill several thousands of people on the States' West coast and surrounding islands. The chemical calls for pieces of a specific orange. The problem is there are only 3,000 of these oranges on the entire planet and my partner is also in need of them. I was allotted $250,000 to pay off my partner in order to buy these oranges.

My partner who happened to be a guy I had never spoken to in my life, had a completely different scenario desperate for these specific oranges. He went on to explain how he was a medical missionary aiding pregnant women in an undisclosed area with a certain disease that was causing serious birth defects to their unborn children, often leading to hardships for both, mother and child. While they had come up with a way to subdue this disease, in many cases, there was no cure. They needed the oranges to send the medicine into mass supply, in hopes of catching the disease early and preventing further contamination.

This is when I realized that out of the 15 or so groups, we were the only guy/girl match-up. I felt as though as a woman, these women needed a female taking a stand for them. I love babies, I don't want to see anyone hurting in that beautiful process of life. On the other hand, my case was extremely time sensitive and would undoubtedly kill thousands of innocent and situationally ignorant lives. So, I negotiated with the best persuasive charm I knew of & tried to present the main facts in a brief-get-the-point-accross way.

We agreed that I would get all 3,000 of the oranges and that we would both look into getting more into production. I won. I was proud of myself until I realized how I had looked over the intimate detail of which part of the orange each of our studies needed. We needed completely different parts! I had gotten so bogged down with the objective of winning, I completely overlooked the key factor in each of our stories.

Our decision affected lives because of one small intimate detail. When called out, we felt awful. We had been so proud that we came to a consensus, that something was accomplished and that we never even dwindled down to talking money or payoffs. So non-chalantly, just as the way the relationship question had bothered me before, I bothered these pregnant women by overlooking important details to win something I thought to be more logical.

The point is, one, we so often overlook important factors to make things seem as we want them to. & two, when we are bothered by things, we point out the flaws in others but fail to see them in ourselves.

I am convicted by this simple exercise and hope it serves as a lesson to pay more attention to details, they can be sweet and detrimental to our lives. I also hope that when I am frustrated with something, I can call it out of myself before I accuse it in others.

Something scary, only one group had noticed that detail that allowed both roles to achieve their goal and ultimately spare lives of many more people than settling to help only one group. Wow.