I’ve been talking a lot about the The Shawshank Redemption these days, about the accumulative value of small efforts over time. I’ve discussed it with my ESL class, which is struggling with the difference between the present and the present continuous, and with my Reading students, who are trying to wrap their minds around the meta-language of adjectives and adverbs. I’m pretty sure it’s come up in my writing class at some point, and if it hasn’t, it will soon. It’s an image that flashes on my internal screen every time overwhelm outshouts action. The image — (and if you have yet to see the movie, skip the rest of this paragraph until you do) — of a man chipping himself out of thick prison walls with nothing but an old rock hammer. It takes 20 years, but he finds freedom. “Andy loved geology…,” reflects the narrator at the end of the film. “Geology is the study of pressure and time. That’s all it takes really, pressure, and time.”
It’s the tiny steps I’m enamored of lately. A three minute mediation. One yoga posture. Ten minutes, or a page, of writing. Half a page. Something, anything, to inch myself toward my goals.
Confucius said, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” But one step feels so uninspired, too insignificant to matter, so we wait. For the time to take a running leap. The stamina to run ten miles. Or the money to hire a taxi. It doesn’t work that way. It’s all about dumb steps. Ordinary. Unglamorous. The first one. The fifth one. The next one. And the next. Pressure and time. Effort and time. Over and over again.
This blog post is today’s small step. Quickly launched, incomplete and imperfect, it has my inner jailers up in arms. But when I hit publish, I will be an inch closer to my destination, one breath freer than I was before.
And you? What are your dreams? Are you living your most expressive, creative life? Or is some part of you locked away, walled in by bricks of Can’t, Won’t, Never, Should, Not Enough, and all the ways we explain why freedom is beyond us. If so, remember Andy Dufresne and The Shawshank Redemption. Geology is about pressure and time. And patience. So what if it takes six-months to get in shape, six years to finish that novel? That time will pass anyway. How little can you afford today? Fifteen minutes? Five? What’s the smallest step you can take? Take it. Take another tomorrow. Tiny steps. No bigger than dust and gravel. There’s a whole world waiting on the other side.
© Deborah Edler Brown, 2011.
Deborah Edler Brown 
Perfect start.
Thank you! 🙂
ahhh…I think you’re talking about being in the moment…being present in each and every delicious confirmation of being alive. That kind of thinking is what keeps me going, gets me up every morning and holds my hand throughout the day. Without that perspective, I believe I would be lost…Thanks for sharing…so I get to share this. : )
Laurie! Thanks for the comment. You’re right: being present is so important. But I’m talking about more than being in the moment. I’m looking at the choices we make while we’re there (here?). The small gestures that get us from where we are to where we want to be. It’s a dance between the immediate task and the larger goal, or, to borrow a term, between Mouse Vision and Eagle Vision.
Your comment about overwhelm resonated.
It’s what I work on with my clients. Learning to sit and breath when overwhelm threatens. Before the big trauma gets tackled, the small gestures of living today – breathing through sadness, walking when scared – built muscles to get ready for the larger work, become the larger work.
As I am writing, I am called to remember these practices in my own life.
“the small gestures of living today — breathing through sadness, walking when scared…” Beautiful. Thank you. And so happy it resonated.
This is exactly what I needed to hear (read) right now, Deborah! Or should I say…”write now!” It is always better to act, even in small ways, than to sit idly while the time inevitably passes. And Shawshank is one of my all-time favorite films 🙂
Congrats on getting this blog started — good for you!! You’re inspiring me.
Dana – so happy to hear it! I look forward to hearing where your tiny steps take you.
I’m so happy you’re blogging & I can read them one small step at a time!
Thanks doll! Me too! 🙂
How perfect, and how appropriate. It has been such a journey, such an adventure, since we started our tiny steps all those many years ago. I am so excited to be taking your class this Spring, and know from experience, that your guidance helps me take bigger steps than I might have dared otherwise.
What a journey indeed! Can’t wait to have you come play in my pond!
I read your post right after reading Andrew Sullivan’s post, “We are in many moments”. (http://bit.ly/ghr2mj) And your words, “That time will pass anyway. How little can you afford today? Fifteen minutes? Five? What’s the smallest step you can take? Take it. Take another tomorrow. Tiny steps. No bigger than dust and gravel. There’s a whole world waiting on the other side.” How do we, cast adrift in a stream of sand running out, step out of time so as to link the moment and the infinite without scaring ourselves into silence?
Glen — what a wonderful link and a stirring, gorgeous question. Almost a poem in itself. It calls back two stories. One, an afternoon years ago where everything went wrong. I couldn’t find the house I was staying at. I only knew it from the beach side, so took off down the beach, but in the wrong direction, carrying my overnight bag, overheated in a sweatshirt I couldn’t take off (zip beneath) and frustrated in my dream of unpacking and taking a leisurely beach walk. Then I realized I was taking a beach walk, just not the one I intended. Took a deep breath, laughed at myself, and took the walk I was on. The second, a night in Topanga, where I was praying, “Please let me be present,” and an impatient inner voice, a la Mary Poppins, whispered, “well then, shut up and be present!” I think I vote with Blake: “eternity in an hour”
I just spent the past several moments completely absorbed by two wonderfully poignant thoughts – both sprinkled with the perfect amount of humor, connection, purpose, visual…
I will read and re-read them. With joy. With thoughtfulness. And I will be inspired.
Oh thank you…for reading and for letting me know.
Thanks, Deb! Was nice to be reminded of this today; I know all about overwhelm’s paralytic effect. Hugs, Kinga
Hi Kinga! So happy it landed well. Hugs, D
“Geology is about pressure and time. And patience.”
Love your post!
Hi sweetheart!
How important are your words. It’s so common to see people that never gives the first step… Sometimes life seems so hard for them, the world so huge… And for the ones who watches the difficult the person has to move is completely incomprehensible.
Having a real dream means desire and many people just can’t desire…
I really liked your first step for this blog!!! Hope you can give many of them.
love
Nidia