One At A Time

"How do you eat an Elephant? One bite at a time"
-Quoted by some guy clearly not aware about the concept of binge eating


The above line is something I picked up while reading Mark Owen's  "No Easy Day". The story about the SEAL team that went on the mission to Abbottabad (and makes me think twice before ordering pizza at night).
The line however which the protagonist says pushed him was something that stuck with me. No not because it is an elephant. Well kinda. It is because those small words carry some big meaning. Of course those words at first go did not make much impact. Like most things we read, or hear or experience, their relevance got highlighted only when I found myself in a position to appreciate their depth. For a better part of my life, my athletic achievements have been limited to retrieving the TV remote from one room within an hour or reaching across the bed for it, and while my physical prowess is spoken with awe among sloths, among the social animals such as ourselves it is more at a value mathematicians would like to denote to be just a scrap above zero.

Will shortly be arriving.

However, in my final year there was just a push that sort of motivated me to probably cross the threshold of exertion to the limit that you can at least beat a spider trying to make a web around you. So I set out to battle my first foe, running. It has been chronicled by great many a minstrels that there was a mother who wanted her son to run, but the son preferred to watch Pokemon and that's why his tryouts for the Olympics were undone. 

Ain't no one taking me away from Kanto.

                 

Basically my years of being a politician about running around came back to bite me (yeah they ran their bit) and I finally had to push myself to at least not collapse into a human puddle. Or like collapse either. I'll spare you the details of that, but it was during one run on a particularly trying day that those words about consuming an Elephant struck me. Every step I was taking, every millimeter I moved ahead, every panting breath, gasping for oxygen (or like the light at the end of the tunnel) was one step more than what I had previously done. Every movement ahead while barely a dent was in fact a movement ahead,  and that pushed me. Every run henceforth, every length of the pool, every  skip, every extra sweet dish at Barbecue Nation, encouraged me. Just one more, just one ahead. just take the large challenge  and break it down into small pieces, till the waiters at an all you can eat buffet look at you like the physical incarnation of world hunger.         

What happened ultimately was that the run wasn't about how far I ran the race, it was about HOW I ran the race. Whether I ran it like a chore, or if I ran it as a battle. If I ran it as a compulsion or I ran it as a challenge. If I ran it, convinced that I'd have a better chance of completing the circuit if I flew or if I decided to cut the self expensed  humour and actually do something I had aimed for and that made all the difference. 

That year, those month of running imparted me the wisdom which I think actually pushed me into adulthood. Don't get me wrong, I am still in denial about maturity, but I actually feel that achieving anything isn't about conquering the thing you target. It is about conquering that part in yourself that thinks it can't. It is about shutting down your opposition. It is about taking that huge trek and breaking it down smaller and smaller till every step and breath is charging you towards your goal. 

I took that lesson with me, for this last year that I spent betwixt and between. Correction, that I continue to spend betwixt and between a lot. Aims, aspirations, cuisines etc etc. Every mammoth task that befell me at work, or every change that had to be induced was done one twirl and spin at a time.All I had to do was ensure that I did my small bit towards myself and just maintained that flow. 

While that book might've not been the pinnacle of literary achievements, or my running around been the peak of human fitness, that phase, that mindset gave me a bigger and better gift just short of the best one (life) I ever got. It taught me the best way to deal with it. To deal with life.Simply, one bite at a time. 

Steady As She Goes

So after my last entry, I did something any blogger worth his salt might do. I spammed some of my closest friends about it, so a big shout out to them (even if they didn't respond with any input. Not like I care. Pft.).

Anyway. This entry is a about fresh starts. Probably should've been ideal for the previous entry but as they say, hindsight is 6/6.
What you realise after having made multiple starts in life, such as resolutions is that probably nothing like a "fresh start" actually exists. Think about it. Saying fresh start implies that it is some new beginning. Though, in all honesty, is that really even possible? They say we are a sum of our experiences. Doesn't it stand to reason that obviously there isn't any running away from it?

"Those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it"

I think nothing captures the argument better than this. Of course some people use "fresh start" to imply the removal of obligations and reset to a base level, but really is that even possible? Haven't you moved beyond that level of being a greenhorn? It just seems to me there is a lot more to be learnt and remembered from our mistakes than to try to forget them. As for fresh starts, agreed they might be something which are needed in really dire situations but too often I have seen that we've become a generation that is ready to quit at things too easily. We're so eager to cut our losses that we actually start causing them. Tenacity is something which probably most of us need a lesson in. When you look at the world you see that some of the best victories, the biggest empires,corporations, armies that managed to not only survive but flourish were those which simply refused to give up no matter what the odds were. It is an extreme end and a bit of a deviation but what I am trying to convey is probably our world these days is probably so obsessed with "fresh starts" that they fail to give enough effort in their previous one.

We're a generation that was reared on choices. We've had different options for foods, cultures, religions, entertainment to the extent that all of it begins to lose its value.What they've also caused is a decrease in attention span as no longer do we follow see one thing through, but we are always looking for another option more suited to us. Trying to find a perfect fit at an age where we ourselves are still trying to make ourselves in the first place.In a time before changing your employment was something done by senior employees for broadening their horizons, now a days right at the collegiate level people are ready to jump ship. We end up trying so many different things that we fail to commit and take one thing forward.

It's not to say it isn't a good thing. It has of course caused the development of a cross trained workforce and those who already have a plan of doing so should continue with it. But what about those who try something new simply because the present is too tough and the rose tinted glasses of beginning are now fading to show their real colours. This quality manifests itself everywhere. In relationships, education everywhere. Failure to commit is probably the best way to commit a failure (I will be so disappointed if someone hasn't said that already).

The main thing I am trying to convey here is that we need to learn to commit to ourselves. We need to learn to really trust and believe in ourselves. We need to take the bull by the horns and not try a different sport. We start a battle and give up at the toughest. Probably that's the best time to continue because how worse could things get? So that's it. Don't take a fresh start. Refresh the old one.