The Chinese
have a saying “The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.” We have
to start somewhere and that somewhere is the beginning. However we live in a
world of instant rice, instant coffee, and so much more that manifests itself
in minutes. Most people these days do not want a long journey. They want to get
the end, and get there in a hurry. Instant gratification. They say that good
things come to those who wait, but many people do not want to wait. They have
no patience. We don’t want to take one step. We want to take as many steps as
quickly as possible. People sometimes have good intentions but don’t follow
through. The Appalachian Trail begins on one end in Georgia. Seasoned hikers
can tell you about the gear they find in shelters or trail side stores that
have been left because the hiker(s) have called it quits after finding out that
hiking the trail is not as easy or perhaps as romantic as they thought it would
be. A good ethic to live by is if you are going to start something, you should
finish it. Yet this ethic is largely ignored. Maybe that is why so many
marriages end in divorce. Instead of working at it, the couple throws up their
hands and quits without making much of an effort. This is not surprising. We
live in a disposable world. The landfills keep growing with all the things we
throw away. Instead of mending a shirt or jacket, we throw it in the trash and
head over to the shiny shopping mall to buy another one. Who wants an old shirt
that has been sewed when the local department store has so many new shirts you
can buy, and on credit too. Sometimes, we are still paying for something that
has long since ceased to exist. People still are paying off a wedding when a
divorce is in the final stages. A thousand miles is a long way to go, and few
of us want to make the effort to get there. We look for the easy way out, the
shortcut. For things that are truly worth having, there are no shortcuts. You
have to roll up your sleeves and get to work.
