A short personal story to illustrate a point

This one might be hard to follow.  It rolls up a lot of things into a conclusion in which you may not agree.  One of the points is that the difference between success and failure is really not that much.  With that, I begin the story.

One caveat here:  I don't like to tell too much about this as I like to keep my own privacy.  A lot of extra details will be left out.  But the important ones will remain.

Many years ago, there was a bit of a flirtation between me and a receptionist at one of my stops on a route I was doing at the time.  For the longest time, she seemed to be hinting that I should do something, but what that something was wasn't clear to me.  It turns out that she wanted me to call where she worked on weekends.  And I was more than willing to do that, but...  I didn't get it.  Why?  Why not talk right then and there?

There was a reason why, but I didn't get it.  That's the point.  Anyway, the second part of this is that I have this tendency to transpose in my reading, writing and speaking.  Maybe it is a slight form of dyslexia.  But one weekend, I tried this as I seemed to have gotten the hint again.  So I did call, or I thought I did.  But there was no answer.  So, I figured she was just flirting and wasn't serious about anything and blew the whole thing off.  Besides, I figured I'd get another chance some other time.  I GOT NO MORE CHANCES.

I found out much later that she was avoiding a problem by having me do this and that was the reason for calling her there at that time.  She was unwilling to be plain about it for that reason as well, but once again, one of my tendencies made it impossible for me to see this.  That's another story which I won't be relating here.  Anyway, her behavior seemed inexplicable and frankly a bit bizarre.  But I was wrong about that.

It was a rather sad story as it ended, but a serious relationship came so close.  Or I believe that it did.  I believe it did because there were a few things I checked out that seemed to confirm it.  The moral?  The difference between success and failure could be as simple as typing in a wrong number and then not double checking to see if it was correct.  Very simple, but the failure to do this could lead to some very unpleasant outcomes.

It doesn't have to be really complex.  It could be really, really simple.  Think of that when you are thinking about the fall of Western Civilization.  It could take something really simple to turn it all around.  Or it may not happen and the crash will occur.

For what it's worth.

Update:

I've connected a personal story to the goings on with respect to the civilization at large.  Okay, if you think that is a big stretch, keep in mind one thing:  that we don't need perfect people to run this country.  In general, you don't need to be perfect for anything.  We only need people to do their duty.  In my own case, I should have been more careful.  That's simple.  In the end, doing your duty is a simple thing.  The Constitution doesn't assume people are perfect, but the opposite.  Otherwise, why do you need checks and balances?  To restore confidence, they only need to do is their duty, which is what they swore an oath to do.