one step at a time
5 minute read
When my son was about five years old we took a bus out to a local village a couple of miles from the town where we lived.
There are a series of footpaths that snake back to town through woodland and alongside a floodplain next to the river.
It is very beautiful and very intreguiging, with lots of features along the way.
Neither of us left with any intention of walking all the way home, certainly not him with his little legs. However, one path led to another and before we knew it we were halfway back to town.
Had I presented him with the idea at the outset, the prospect of the journey would have weighed so heavy in his imagination that his little legs simply wouldn't have been able to bear the burden of the thought of that walk.
What powered us both in the end was curiosity.
curiouser and curiouser...
One step at a time.
“What do you think is over there?” I kept asking.
Because he didn't know, and because he was curious to find out, we became explorers of the unfolding mystery that each path contained.
For his imagination, the burden was light as he was only ever walking to ‘just over there.’
We took our time.
It was a truly wonderful and magical day.
I've lost count of the number of times I've started a project thinking that it would resolve in about a 10th of the time it actually takes. Thankfully I have a level of persistence and perseverance that appears to make it difficult to let go and give up - perhaps sometimes to my detriment.
