“It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him,” the writer J. R. R. Tolkien advises.
Our dragons are our fears. They stalk us in the day, make us sweat at night. Fear of the unknown. Fear of failing. Fear of starting something and not finishing. Again.
Our calculations are typically a straight shot to immediate subtraction. And yet, as much as we say we want be rid of dragons, most times we don’t really mean it. Because without fear, we believe, without stress or anger, we won’t act, that we’d just sit around while everything we’re holding onto will collapse. Let us also acknowledge in all honesty the familiar comfort of the fear that’s been with us for a long while, a crutch we’re reluctant to let go.
So we let the dragons stay and take the lead, while we come to a standstill.
Inevitably, we find ourselves sitting in a dark cave, feeling trapped and powerless.
In the deep darkness, we forget how we got here, and wonder why.
We’re here because we stopped moving.
We also forget that we have always known how to work our way out of this.
What seems like the hardest thing to do is also the easiest way out; it is to take that first step. Nothing big or dramatic, just a small, simple step, then another, and then another.
Steps that are so small at times, they are embarrassingly laughable. When fear feels very big, a direct challenge feels impossible and unwinnable. But a few small steps? Fear doesn’t even bat an eyelash.
Well, not until you keep going, and they add up. And oh do they add up.
Jacob Riis points us to The Stonecutter’s Credo:
When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stone cutter hammering at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow, it will split in two, and I know it wasn’t the last blow that did it, but all that had gone before.
Small steps are the invisible work. For a while, often longer than you like, it feels like nothing is happening. But small steps are your best bet out the dark cave and into the light.
Small steps are easy. Sustainable. Most importantly, they keep you moving so the dragons don’t paralyze you. All you need to do is to make sure that you’re working toward what actually matters to you.
Just remember, it’s simply not an adventure worth telling if there aren’t any dragons. But in the best stories, the dragons always meet their match.
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