Stuck
Tuesday, June 30th, 2009
I suppose that most people have heard the adage about a journey of a thousand miles beginning with a single step. I’m guessing that somebody (the internet seems to claim it was Confucius) uttered that little gem at a time when a thousand miles seemed like a pretty sizable distance. I guess if all you can do is walk…
But I’m not talking about the first step. The first step is the historic one. Before you took the first step, you probably got a good night’s sleep. You probably had a good breakfast. You were at home and you had comforting familiar things around you. Your batteries were fresh and your lunch was packed.
And I’m not talking about the destination either. The destination is the place of your dreams. The destination is blissful. After all, you’ve arrived at that magical place and in the process, you’ve conquered something, your doubt, the forest of flames (to use a Utopia reference), your parole officer, something.
No, I’m talking about, say, the 26th step of mile 401. Wow, that one sucks. No one writes proverbs about that one. You look around you and nothing is familiar. You look behind you and you definitely can’t see your house anymore. Your feet are killing you and you’re nowhere near your destination. You’ve eaten your last marmalade sandwich. You might not even be sure about the last couple of turns you made.
The next step is the ultimate test of your will. I’m starting to think that this one is more important than the first. At this point, your mind starts to wander on you and your perseverance and your fortitude can easily go with it. The destination cannot drive you now. It’s empty of promise because nothing you do at this moment will make it to deliver for you. You might even be angry at it for failing you. So…
You can turn back, but that would mean a whole lot of wasted time and energy. No good.
You can go forward, but nothing is going to be looking up for quite a while. You want something now. What’s the point?
Sitting on the side of the road won’t do any good either. You were sort of doing that at home before you got into this mess, but now you might not even know where you are.
You’re stuck.
What is needed is a change of perspective. At this point, the journey becomes merely about you, still walking after all of this time. Your only job at mile 401 is to keep walking. There’s only one way I know to do that: Start counting again.
It seems that a journey of 599 miles also begins with the first step. It’s less romantic than the thousand mile one and it takes the strength you didn’t know you had. Whether you knew it or not, it’s what you signed up for at the beginning. Only now it’s a shorter walk.
