A Facebook buddy has the following quotation on his home page: “Doing is a quantum leap from imagining.” I am struck both by its truth and by the way in which it is not true. The truth of it is commonplace: talk is cheap, actions speak louder than words, wishing don’t make it so, etc. But I am also aware of the way it is not true, or rather, the way in which we exaggerate the size of the leap and make it too hard in order to excuse our inaction. Psychologically, doing can be an enormous leap.
But in the words of a cd that my kids currently demand as soon as we get into the minivan, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” Often, that step is not that hard. Then another, then another, and pretty soon we look back with amazement at how far we’ve come. We just have to get off the dime, you know? Break it down, figure out what the first step is, then the next, build some momentum and ……
