Assignment
Begin by reading the passage below.
Are You Minding the Millimeter?
In any undertaking in life, it is important to
mind the millimeter. What is minding the millimeter? To put it
simply, it is minding (or attending to) the seemingly miniscule components in
any type of work. However, the minor factors add up to (or multiply into)
major problems. On the other hand, if you attend to the right small matters,
they would multiply into major desirable accomplishments or outcomes.
The importance of minding the millimeter is apparent in the sport of bike
racing. Mark Cavendish (professional cyclist and winner of many stages of
major bike races such as the Tour de France and the Tour de Britain) is known
to mind every small adjustment on his bike and in his training, down to the
millimeter literally. According to 453 and a Half, "Cavendish
is well known for being completely obsessed with every detail in his
preparation, paying close attention to everything from his wattage output to
adjusting his saddle position a fraction of a millimeter."
Similarly, Phil Jackson (the former basketball
coach who had won ten NBA championships) taught his players this importance of
not neglecting the details. He told them that a war is lost on a single
nail of a ship. Apparently, this was programmed into the mind of Michael
Jordan, the basketball legend coached by Jackson.
The principle of minding the millimeter also
applies to computer programming and software development. For
programmers, leaving out just a minor part of the code may result in major
problems, such as the whole application not working at all. Therefore,
they must be mindful of every millimeter.
Does attending to the millimeter lead you for
certain to produce the desired outcome? No, it is not a guarantee, but it
significantly improves your chances if you mind the millimeter. Nothing
in life is a guarantee. An athlete training for the Olympics is not
guaranteed to win the gold medal, but it would be foolish of him to neglect the
training and neglect the millimeter adjustments just because there is no
guarantee. Unfortunately, people have the foolish logic of not minding
the millimeter in other areas of life just because there is no guarantee.
Another reason for this common fallacy is that one minor adjustment
in itself does not solve the problem and therefore, why bother. This
logic is flawed. When you adjust for one millimeter here, a gram there,
and another millimeter here, they will synergistically contribute toward the outcome
you want.
Adapted from article by Amadeo Constanzo,
life.SpirFit.com , September 14, 2015
(You may freely post and distribute this article if and only if you include this statement with the link or URL to the original article or website. More CATW Practices and lessons are available at SpirFit.org Send questions and inquiries to healthsciencewriter@gmail.com )
Writing Directions
Read the passage above and write an essay
responding to the ideas it presents. In your essay, be sure to summarize
the passage in your own words, stating the author’s most important ideas.
Develop your essay by identifying one idea in the passage that you feel is
especially significant, and explain its significance. Support your claims with
evidence or examples drawn from what you have read, learned in school, and/or
personally experienced.
Remember to review your essay and make
any changes or corrections that will help your reader follow your thinking.
You will have 90 minutes to complete your essay.
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