Small Changes Big Results
April 13, 2009 by Will Marre
It was great California weather this morning. The early morning was clear. Water green. But what made my morning was a change I made in my surfboard. Last year I had Steve Walden custom shape a four-fin fish-style surfboard. At the last minute he suggested he put in a fin box between the side fins. That, he said, would create unlimited options. For over a year I’ve just been riding the board with all four side fins and nothing in the center fin box. It is the conventional set up for the design of the board. Well I unscrewed and removed 2 of the side fins and inserted an 8-inch cutaway fin in the center fin box. And guess what happened. We had some overhead waves coming through and the new fin set up dramatically increased the acceleration of the board out of turns. The turns suddenly became more positive, more sure and especially more explosive. It’s a new surfboard. Much more fun. It’s like getting in your same old car and suddenly finding you have a Ferrari under the same old sheet metal.
When I was walking up the beach after the session I was reflecting on how amazing it is that such a relatively small change could make such a big change in performance.
As I considered this happy outcome, I was struck with how often that is also true in life. How seemingly little changes can make a huge difference in life satisfaction. It can be an extra hour of sleep. A daily walk with my wife. A regular conversation with my children. A daily 20 minutes set aside for inspirational reading. A decision not to work with someone who has a conflicting agenda. A daily piece of dark chocolate….Yes it’s often the small adjustments that put the biggest smile on my face.
Education without morals is just education. Since public prayer and worship has been eliminated in the schools of our nation. The education in our school systems have been declining over the years. It will continue to decline until we re-institute morals and God back into it. It wasn’t perfect before they were taken out. But they were a lot better when they were in the school system. The school system will continue to deteriorate until we as a nation founded under God. Realize that without Him we can do nothing. The school system says that they are not raising our children, that it’s the parents job to raise our children. But isn’t educating our children the same as what the parent’s are doing? So until God is put back into our schools, we will continue to have CEO’s and politicians bankrupting us and putting us further into debt. Because without morals along with education we will repeat the same mistakes as before. As long as we try to buy a better society by throwing money at it, we will fail.