The following came to me one recent morning when I was running on an indoor track at a time too early to mention. The trailing slumber, and probably the night before's ice cream were chanting throughout my body that there was no way I could complete the normal 32 laps. When my body took over my mind, it kept pointing out how many laps remained...how impossible it would be to make it all the way...that day. And, it struck me, as I simply plodded on, that all I could really do was run the current lap. And then, the next one came and I did the same thing, thinking the same thing. And, before I knew it, I had run 10 laps...and counting.
Focusing on the likelihoods of the future was disabling something in me. When I focused on the only lap I could run, the current one, I found myself continuing. 20. Then 30. Only 2 to go. I ran faster....
How much like life, I thought, is this lesson. When I try to grasp the whole thing, especially the future, I become too aware of impossibility, of unlikelihood. When I focus on one choice, like one lap, at a time. Slowly a life gets built. And, I learn that I can do things I didn't think I could do.
There Are Many, But Only One.
Like choices, there are many laps in life.
We count them.
We predict them.
And, in doing so, we can miss the one we're on.
Do we predict
because we have counted?
Asking, can we make it?
Will I have enough...to finish?
There is something fearful
fueling all our predicting
which disables something
about this one.
For I can only run the lap I am on.
Each lap can be run,
but only one at a time
as we learn to lean on
Another source within
to accumulate the growing many.
...and that IS enough
to make it,
to make it all the way;
starting with the only one,
the lap (or choice) I'm on.
This one.
