The sun sets on another day…
We all know the joke about how you eat an elephant, right? Well the answer, if you do not know, is one bite at a time.
Last night I had the wonderful opportunity to see one of the mature tress on my lot fall on the power lines. It was not a small tree, nor was it as massive as the one over my home, but it was pretty hefty. Last night I moved what I could but as I got up this morning I surveyed the damage, and decided it would not clean itself up. So I started eating an elephant. The start was over the top, leaves and sticks everywhere, I just began sawing and cutting and using clippers, filling bags.
The rain came in fact I watched the veil of showers cross the lake to me, cross the street and begin pelting me with drops. I thought about going in, but the sidewalk was still blocked so I kept cutting. The blade of the saw came off, it gave me pause for only a moment as I re-seated, re-tightened, and kept going. At some point I cut myself, I am not even sure when, but I did not even notice and kept oiling the blade, cutting branches, and moving things to the curb until the sidewalk and road was cleared.
At that point I realized I needed to stop for a while. So I cleaned up my tools. I had half a truck full of wood, and several huge trunks on the median waiting patiently for pickup. Some I may cut more of, or I will let the department of public works take the rest, either way, it will be gone soon.
We often look at insurmountable tasks as impossible, like the joke, how do you eat an elephant? It seems silly until you look at the answer, one bite at a time. When we come upon something complex or over the top, let’s consider this joke as a solution. How do you build a house, one board at a time. How do you build a wall, one stone at a time. How do you change your life, one moment at a time. It all fits if you let it.
So as the sun sets on another day, consider each day a series of challenges, and your life as a challenge. You have to build a life in 29000 sunsets, how do you do so, one day at a time. If it is 1000 or 10000 it doesn’t matter, the truth is every moment is a bite of a problem you could be using to make your life better, no matter what.
Sleep sweet, have a better life, and smile all you can…