By the wayside...

In American politics, at the executive level especially, (and maybe in all world politics) there is a pretty clear law that says when a politician focuses his term on just two or three major, important themes he will be more successful. Ronald Reagan famously did this (scaling the government down, winning the Cold War).

There is power in this practice too for anyone.

We can all see how we deal lightly with the most dense and profound influences simply because we are swimming in such influences (i.e. they are so numerous we're like a king who picks through a table of every kind of food known to man, like, big deal, while a beggar at his gate is scratching for crumbs).

Admittedly it is not as clear as one might like it to be. Influences can be valuable and one-of-many (in the sense of being at one level with many other similar influences).

But this law can be practical when you use it like this, perhaps: take a field like systematic theology where there are numerous great sources and it's easy to get lost in sampling portions of all of them rather than choosing one and focusing on it and making it your own in a whole and complete way.

This is all known of course. But focusing on it may be new, or needed.

Part of this is this: you let other things go by the wayside. I.e., you don't constantly think you have to partake in everything. You've got your two or three things, and, anyway, if they are big and summit-level, all else will probably in some general way get brought in to their net, or dragged along in their wake.