I’m a big fan of cliches. They’re kind of like a verbal shorthand, or the punchline to an inside joke. They save time and they get the point across more effectively than a rambling anecdote usually does. You could spend five minutes trying to explain to your significant other at the end of your workday why you are so frustrated that, no matter how clearly you’ve spelled it out for your boss and no matter how many examples you’ve shown him that it’s a better strategy than what your company is doing and no matter how many other companies do the same or similar things and have had amazing results, you still can’t get him to understand that what you’re saying makes sense and he should get on board with the plan.
Or you could just say “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.”
I’ve been thinking a lot about cliches since yesterday, the day I wanted to write this blog, and a bunch came to mind-“Mountain out of a molehill”, “A journey of a thousand miles…”, and even, yes, “Can’t see the forest for the trees.” Thing is I couldn’t find just the right one. You see, as much as they are a verbal shortcut, a good cliche should also make you think about just what, exactly, the point is. And the thing that all three of those cliches have in common is they all refer to someone who is missing the perspective of what is going on: “You’re making a big deal out of nothing”, “You need to to take the first step” and “You’re missing the big picture.” In some ways, all of those felt right for how I’ve been feeling the last couple of days, but just not quite. This morning, I figured it out.
It’s very easy in anything to let the scope of it overwhelm you. Combine a few of those things-work, family life, social obligations-and it can become this huge shadow that darkens everything. The pressure of it becomes more and more intense, and you find it wearing you down. Your outlook becomes more negative, you become more moody and instead of living each day to it’s fullest, you’re just trying to survive it.
I realized this morning that my problem isn’t that I don’t see the forest; it’s that the forest is all I see. It is this huge all encompassing thing, and I’m just little ole’ me. I need to get back for seeing each tree on it’s own. Yeah, there’s a lot of them-work on the new novel, market the old books, learn magic tricks (more on that some other time), write the rum blog, etc.-but each one is their own. And instead of starting every day by waking up and saying “I got to do something about this forest”, I need to wake up and say “Today I’ll work a little on this tree, and that tree, and that other tree over there.” Some days I’ll spend more time on one tree than the others, but some days that’s how it has to be, and most days, when I go to bed, I’ll realize that, by looking at each tree, I managed to tame the forest, if just a little.
PopcornJackTerry 