One at a Time

I was talking to a border patrolman one day, and I asked him about his job. He shared with me some of the risks of getting hurt, and even the chance of being exposed to disease. He said he was careful to change clothes and shower before he hugged his children after work. But he also said he'd gotten to know many of the illegal aliens by name because he had come in contact with them so many times, picking up the same people over and over again.

I asked him if he ever got discouraged since there seemed to be no end in sight to the flood of people coming across the border. It looked like he was attempting to plug up a huge number of cracks with only so many fingers in a bursting dam.

He told me, "You can't look at it that way. If you do, you'll get discouraged and defeated, and you won't be able to do your job. You have to take one day at a time, one person at a time, and just do what you were told to do."

That advice really stuck with me, especially how it relates to so many aspects of my life. At times I become overwhelmed and discouraged looking at the big picture of a job, instead of breaking the job down into manageable portions and focusing on one task at a time. I used to try to find a stopping place when I first started working at the library, but would find myself working hours after closing time and never actually finding a point where I could say, "It's finished for today." Most folks think that all a librarian does is shush people, check out books, and read bestsellers all day long. Before I started working at the library, I actually thought librarians did have a lot of free time on their hands, but I learned quickly that library work is never-ending. And I eventually learned to just stop when the library closed because the work would still be there waiting for me the next day-- just like housework.

Thinking about the never-ending tasks of housework used to be enough to paralyze me into sitting down and doing nothing. But when I finally learned that filling dishwasher and wiping the cabinet only takes about ten minutes, or mowing the lawn means about a half hour of exercising, or disinfecting the bathroom or sorting the laundry takes about five minutes each, and so on, I can tackle those jobs if I focus on the task at hand instead of the whole shebang. And a whole lot of little jobs can quickly add up to accomplishing a great deal.

Charitable organizations and ministries would be crushed under the weight of the burden of helping the needy if they constantly focused on the huge numbers of people needing help. But they can't look at it that way or they'll get discouraged and defeated and won't be able to do their jobs. They have to take one day at a time, one person at a time, and do what they were told to do. And one by one, and family by family can add up to a multitude of people that have been helped.

Even in the midst of difficult or simply mundane jobs, we can still find jewels in the mud and the muck if we just keep our eyes open:

• watching a bumblebee get nectar from the wilting flowers I'm having to water for the gazillionth time this year...
• the mockingbird serenading us from the telephone pole as we work in the yard...
• the student who actually got excited about learning something we were teaching in the midst of too many other kids who think school is interfering with their social lives...
• a helping hand or a smile of encouragement during a frustrating moment or day or week...
• a comment by a reader who said my book or blog really touched them, and to tell me to keep on writing.... after I've been sitting there staring at my computer struggling to write and wondering if I should keep doing this...

You have to take one day at a time, one person at a time, one task at a time, one shovel at a time, and a mountain can eventually be moved.