It was an internet problem, for sure. I had been recording videos on my cell phone and relying on Google to upload them automatically to their photos site. Then, they do some magic and reduce the size of the video, sometimes cutting the size in half or more. Then, I download them to my computer and I have videos at great quality and half the memory size. These are the types of things you do when you work technology and are poor!
But I had a big problem in the process. My large videos would start to upload and I would put my phone down and get going on something else. Then, I’d go back and wake up my phone a hour later, and they would still be uploading at the same position. There was almost no progress. So, I left it overnight to upload. I wake up in the morning and it’s still taking forever. It must be the internet speed, I thought. Our upload speed here has been 0.7. Most places back in the States get you minimum 10, even up to 200. You have to be very crafty and resourceful to get technology to work when you’re poor.
I had to deal with this slow uploading for weeks. Until something occurred to me. Maybe my phone wasn’t uploading while the photos app was in the background. It was a hunch. After an internet search, it seemed more believable. So I fished through my settings in my phone, and there it was: some power saving setting was keeping my phone from uploading photos while the app wasn’t front and center on the phone. I tapped on the screen to change the setting, and then restarted the app. I put my phone down, and got going on other stuff. About a half hour later, I picked up the phone to check if anything was different and – yes! – it was backing up, plowing through all the video uploads. Now it finished everything in about an hour, after going all night with hardly any progress.
It was that one setting, that one small, hidden setting, that was making my life a misery, slowing everything down. That one tiny setting cost me so much time and attention and energy, and really delayed the project I’ve been trying to get done. Knowing that setting and how to switch it – that is very important information.
There is a joke I like to tell about consultant engineers. There was a company with a factory whose principal product-making machine broke down. It’s costing over a million dollars a day, so they call in an engineer consultant. After introductions, the consultant goes out to the shop floor with the project manager and investigates the machine. After looking at the front, center, and rear of the machine up and down, the consultant takes out a red magic marker and draws an X-mark on one small part in the under-belly of the machine. He turns to the project manager and says, “Replace this one part, and that will fix your problem.” The manager thanks him, and sees him off after a brief coffee break together. Right away, the part is ordered for overnight and replaced the next day, and sure enough, the machine fires back up. Millions of dollars saved. Well, a week later, the manager receives a bill from the engineer for $10,101. Of course, he asks him for an itemization, which the engineer sends right away. It says, $100 for an hour of labor, $1 for a red magic marker to put an X- mark, and $10,000 for knowing where to put it!
So much of life for us hinges on one small and hidden thing about ourselves and our life. We are not naturally aware of it, and usually find a large variety of other things – or people – to blame instead for our problems in life. If we’re not aware of it, it really slows us down, saps our time and energy, and delays our deeper plans and sense of purpose in life – even shutting them down. Knowing what that small, unseen aspect of ourselves is, what it can do, and what to do about it – that is very, very important information.
When Jesus comes to a house of friends Martha and Mary, it looks to the hosts like there is a lot to be done. Martha is off doing everything, while Mary … Mary does *one* thing. She sat next to Jesus listening to him. Why? Because Jesus is sharing that very, very important information.
That’s why Jesus is given to us. He wants to touch and fix that one small and hidden aspect of us and our lives, and free us from a daily slog of wasting time and energy, to put a big new life and motion into our deeper plans and sense of purpose in life.
There’s only one small thing to do.
Listen to him.
“Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things. There is need of only one thing.” (Lk 10:41-42)
ALM 