One Bite at a Time

I have this little habit. I try to look ahead, down the road, and I worry because when I look at everything there is to do, I just know cannot do it all and what will I do because it's too much and HELP!!!

Does everyone do that?

I find it can be dangerous. For example, you have a difficult task ahead that requires a great deal of planning and work before hand. So on day one, you're just out of the gate, but you're scared such that you panic. You don't just see today's task in front of you. You see tomorrow's task and then the next day's and then the next and so on. Until you are seeing months of work. And somehow you imagine that it all must be done right now. For me, well, it sometimes causes this catatonic freeze where then I can't do anything because I've scared myself into believing that I can't possibly do it. (There is that blasted fear problem again!)

And suddenly you are Melinda Mae and you have a huge whale in front of you that you must eat and your mind is screaming right now and I'm scared and too much too much too much and all sorts of nonsense. So how do you eat it? It's funny in a bit of an ironical way that a girl like me would choose to memorize that particular poem. I did. For grade school. It was probably the first poem I ever memorized. I had no idea...so.

A girl like me...who can't stop herself from wondering how in the world she'll overcome such a giant task because she can't stop looking at the humongous whale on her plate.

And that is something I have to learn.

1. That life only happens one day at a time, one moment at a time and you cannot control tomorrow's task today.

2. That life will always be this way and no amount of fretting will allow you to swallow the whale whole, anyway.

3. That if you take care of what you need to today, then you can take of tomorrow, tomorrow.

4. That big things happen when you approach them one step, one bite, one task at a time. Rome wasn't built in a day and all that.

5. That you wouldn't want to swallow a whale whole anyway...might cause some serious intestinal issues.

6. But one bite at a time? Well, one bite at a time, I mean, that is doable.