One Foot in Front of the Other

    My To Do List is huge.  If it was a tower, it would be called Babel.  If it were a drink, it’d be Supersized.  If it were a body of water, it would be called a Great Lake.  HUGE.  And there are not just a bunch little nuggets that need to be done.  There are massive projects that need to be started, moved forward, and completed.  Each project is a mountain in the distance.  And together they form a seemingly impassable mountain range.  

    Sometimes when I look at what needs to be done, I give up before I start.  It just seems too big.  The sheer amount of energy that must be expended to accomplish the tasks, I don’t even begin.  It is easy to kick the can down the road.  To make excuses like, “I’ll start when I have a bigger block of time.”  Or “I’ll wait until I’m fresh and at 100%.”  But those times don’t ever come to pass.  There is never the ideal circumstances.  So I find myself working on the sand between the stones instead of cracking the stones.  

    Another thing.  The longer I push off a task, the larger the task seems to get.  Time makes it scarier.  It’s difficulty grows in my mind.  

    So, how do you begin when the pile seems to high?  Well, I just start.  I take a step.  I have to take the mountain and break it into manageable pieces.  One time, when I was climbinga mountain in South Dakota, I found myself in a precarious position.  I was in terrible shape.  But the crew I was with wanted to hike the mountain in the middle of the night.  My legs were screaming after only 10 minutes, and we weren’t even to the base of the mountain yet.  So my strategy was surpristily simple.  I would eyeball the a landmark.  Maybe it was the bend at the end of the trail. Maybe it was a crazy tree.  And I would say, “I can get there.”  So I would get there.  Then I would find another one.  And so I went, up and up.  At the end, I turned around a bend and saw the great fire lookout.  There was the top of the mountain.  From the ground, there was no way I could climb that beast.  Yet here I stood, looking down on 4 states from an incredible vantage point under a full moon.

    I apply the same thing to my To Do list.  I set the mark in the project, push to that point, and then make the next.  And eventually, after pushing and straining and walking, it gets done.  This week, some major decisions got made.  Some huge moves that I have been avoiding were finally faced.  And man, is the weight lighter.  It feels so good to check those bad boys off.

    So, put one foot in front of another.  Keep on walking.  I’ll see you at the top.