One Small Step Towards Progress

Be not afraid of growing slowly,
be afraid only of standing still.
Chinese proverb

One step a day towards a goal, no matter how distant, is progress. It’s not much, but it’s progress.

Want to write a book? Okay… one word a day. A sentence if you wish. All right then, a paragraph if you must. But not more than a chapter…

Want to draw? A blank piece of paper is a start of sorts. Holding the pencil is the next obvious step. Putting pencil to paper is the breakthrough. Now stop! I dare you. You can’t. The pencil moves and the muse awakens to the task.

Starting is the hard part, not the moving onwards. Moving is easy. Moving fast, without error, with confidence, that’ll come later, maybe.

But in the meantime,

it’s one foot in front of the other, and the horizon rolls towards you;

another word and another one, until out of the sentences a character forms and begins speaking;

another line on top of a curve to form a suggestion of a shape, until a mountain rises from the paper.

The longest distance between two points, is the time it takes us to decide… not to travel.