One bite at a time

A friend of mine has teenage son who is undergoing chemotherapy.  Posted on her facebook page one day were the words “how do you eat an elephant?” and the answer was “one bite at a time.”   I hadn’t heard that expression in many years but I knew what she was saying.  Sometimes the problem or the task ahead of us seems insurmountable.  But if you give up and don’t address the issue, you don’t get anywhere. One step at a time, one day at a time and you eventually will be where you need to be.

When I went on my “health kick” last year and lost weight and was walking every day, I admit when I started out and the road ahead seemed like a long one, there were days when I just didn’t think I could take one more step or count one more calorie.  The problem seemed too big.  But slowly but surely , one step, one mouthful at a time the weight began to come off  and my health improved dramatically.  I am back on the road to health again having been “scared straight” in a way by my blood sugar levels of last week.  It seems like a long road to start on again….but one step at a time, one bite of the darn elephant at a time and I will eventually have swallowed the whole thing.

It’s very tempting to ignore the things that are going on around you sometimes because you think, well one person or one action isn’t gonna make that big a difference.  But when you think about it, if everyone thought that way then nothing would ever get accomplished.

I remember when the boys were in elementary school and I was the PTO President.  Everyone wanted new playground equipment but there were no funds to purchase new playground equipment.  No one was up for another fundraiser.  Our families and friends had already done all  the buy the worthless junk fundraisers they could handle.  So we decided to do a simple  Pennies for the Playground campaign.  We asked the kids to collect all their pennies and bring them. I think we called it Penny Miles for Playground Smiles.  The teachers had fun with it too, using the pennies to demonstrate not only value but placing them in rows and measuring them as each class tried to complete the most distance in pennies.  Many people thought we would not make enough to mess with.  But it worked out to be one of the more successful fundraisers. Everyone had pennies in cups and drawers and pockets.  It was fun to watch the pile of pennies grow each day and before we knew it we had collected about $800 in pennies.  Gave meaning to the old adage “a penny saved is a penny earned”  Maybe a few cents in pennies wasn’t much for one person but throw a bunch of people’s pennies together and it made a big difference.

I remember one time I was overwhelmed with school and work and raising kids and it seemed like every time I got one thing done another would pop up to take its place.  I literally wanted to get in my car and just drive away from all the obligations that were piling up.  My mom called me that day and I was telling her all the things I needed to do and I remember her telling me,  “well the sooner you get started the sooner you’ll finish”…..”all your accomplishing by talking about how overwhelmed you are is getting yourself even more frenzied.”  Hang up and do one thing, mark it off you list, then do another. “  The reason I remember it so well was that it was so out of character for my mom to not listen to me whine and console me with “poor you, you have so much on your plate, I don’t know how you do it, yadadadad”  Her sensible and frank advise was so out of character.  But I did what she said.  And I found that she was right.  All the time I was spending obsessing over the mountain of a to do list was much better spent actually tackling the to do list.  And before I knew it I was graduating from college, my kids were grown and off on their own and I was wishing for things to fill my time.

As I’m typing this I realize I am  humming the tune from Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer…the one where the abdominable snowman is learning to walk….put one foot in front of the other…and soon you’ll be walking ‘cross the flooooor.  Put one foot in front of the other, and soon you’ll be walking out the door.

Mark Twain said “The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one.”

  "I'm going to stop putting things off, starting tomorrow!"