Domino Effect

Line up dominoes, tip the first, and the rest fall in order — each one tripping the next, no further effort required. The image is so familiar that we forget what it teaches: small causes, correctly arranged, become large consequences.

The arrangement is the secret. A single domino can knock down one slightly larger than itself, which knocks down a larger one still — and physicists have shown the sequence can topple a domino the size of a tower from a push of a finger. The force is in the ordering, not the finger.

Life's cascades work the same way. The habit begun on Monday rearranges the month. The one customer treated well tells ten. The small concession in an argument hands the argument away.

So mind your first dominoes. The morning's first hour, the first hire, the first compromise — these look small because they are small. But they are standing in a line, aimed at everything else.