One Step at a Time

Never give up; you never know until you try.

For Labor Day week, I’m addressing “labor.” For those who don’t already know, I’ll admit right now that I’m a go-getter who likes to make—and see—steady progress toward my goals. I want it all, and I want it yesterday. Because I’ve noticed over the years that there are a lot of people in the same boat, I’ve written about this before, addressing myself as well as my readers. I wrote in “How Far You’ve Come” that I believe we should celebrate how far we’ve come instead of bemoaning how far we’ve still got to go or how long we’ve been striving to get to where we are. In “Journeys, Blessings, and Fatigue,” I wrote that leaping forward into the hoped-for future would mean missing out on blessings that occur along the way. Today, I’d like to remind us all of the often-heard advice to take it one step at a time.

Please, don’t kill the messenger. I agree with you; I hate that advice, too. Yet I’m convinced that it’s the most sensible way to approach a task. Skipping steps can lead to disaster—just ask someone who has had to go back and do something over because she left out an important step. Take intimacy, for example. There is no shortcut. It grows out of time spent together, really learning about another. Leap from “hello” into bed, and you end up in trouble. Leap into a business deal, and you could lose your life savings and your reputation at the same time.

I started working recently as a Basic Skills/GED tutor, and I see students wanting to hurry through the process required to get their high school equivalency credentials. Some express more impatience and frustration than others, trying to skip around in their computerized lesson plans instead of working systematically. Those who skip around, without fail, get confused as to what they should do next. Each lesson builds on the last, so there is some review, and they think they’re repeating lessons and have finished lessons they haven’t. That makes the process take longer and seem even longer. Skipping is definitely counterproductive.

Exercise is another good example I’ve noticed in my life. If I miss an exercise session, I’m sometimes tempted to try to make up for lost time and work out as long and hard as if I hadn’t missed any. What ends up happening is that I’m so sore that I’m sidelined longer as I recover from overworking my muscles. I’m sure everyone has done that at one time or another.

So I close with another old saying: slow and steady wins the race. I think I’ve noted before that I don’t necessarily agree with that piece of wisdom, but I agree that slow and steady is the way to go. Maybe you won’t win, but you have a better chance of finishing. One step at a time.