The Tortoise and the Hare

So this past week my kids brought me a handful of books to read at bed time, and in the stack was the well known fable, "The Tortoise and the Hare."  As I was reading it I thought, man this really applies to what I'm trying to do right now.  To be honest, I've always known the morale of the story, but I've never caught on to how I could apply it to my life.  I was excited that it actually meant something to me this time around when I was reading it.

Here is a little excerpt from the story -
                 
'One day the tortoise was going slowly down the road when the hare zoomed along beside him.  When the hare saw the tortoise, he stopped and ran circles around him, laughing as hard as he could.
                   
"Oh, brother, are you ever slow," whooped the hare.  "I could get from here to China and back before you'd moved six feet!"
                     "I
"I'm not so slow," said the tortoise.  For you see, he knew the hare, and he also knew that the hare could never stick to anything for more than a minute or two.'
                   
First I thought about how I am so the rabbit in this fable.  I never stick to anything for very long.  I make huge grand efforts that usually only last a day or two before I'm exhausted or I give up.  If I'm really lucky my grand efforts may last a week or two or maybe even a month or two, but lately it seems I can't get past the first couple of days.

Here's the last part of the fable -

'Off dashed the hare, leaving the tortoise in a cloud of dust.  But the hare had not gone too far when he felt a little tired.  (Maybe because he was exhausted from trying to do too much at one time?)

"I'll take a nap for a few minute,' he said to himself.  "That tortoise will take hours to get to the lake."  And he fell asleep.  (Sometimes we go too fast because little efforts feel like it'll take too long to accomplish our goal, when we want "it" done NOW!)

Meanwhile, the tortoise plodded along slowly but surely.  Soon, he passed the hare sleeping by the side of the road.  And the tortoise kept right on going.  (the tortoise didn't tire out, because he was taking "baby steps")

As the sun began to sink lower in the sky, the hare woke up.  He rubbed his eyes, and then he remembered the race.  Off he ran as fast as he could go.  But he had slept far too long.  When he got to the lake, the tortoise was sitting there waiting for him.  (Frankly, I think it's impressive the Hare made it to the finish line at all, because I probably would have given up by then.  My grand efforts don't always get me as far as they did him)

"What took you so long?" asked the tortoise, chuckling.  The hare was out of breath, and couldn't answer.  So, as you can see, slow and steady is the way to win the race.'


At one point this week, I had one of those moments when I looked in the mirror, got a little depressed and thought, man I need to do something drastic and get my act together.  Then I remembered the fable and thought, "slow and steady wins the race."  Somehow over the past 6ish years I started letting bad habits take over, it seemed like it was over night, but maybe it wasn't.  Who knows.  Bad habits are so much easier to live by than enforcing good habits.

I also had a point this week when I thought, what if the baby steps theory doesn't work?  Or what if I develop a bunch of good habits and then after a year or two lose them all again, and once more, I'll have to start all over?  I'm hoping that won't happen, because I'm at a point right now that I really hate, so hopefully I'll remember what I don't want to go back to.  But "baby steps" and "slow and steady" is what's got to work this time right?  I'm pretty sure my grand efforts aren't getting me where I need to be, so it's time to be patient and do a little at a time.


So two weeks ago I made the goal to listen to my hypnosis thing every night at bed time.  I've actually stuck to it for two weeks now, and it's been easy because I haven't been focusing on twenty other things along with it.  Last week I added the goal of drinking two cups of water a day, and I don't let myself drink any soda until it's done.  Soda is my "reward" if you will, for drinking my water.  Wonder what my reward will be when I eventually give up drinking soda?  Hmmm...

Next week I'm going to 1)  Keep listening to my hypnosis every night  2) drink  3 cups of water every day, instead of two  and 3) I'm going to exercise for five minutes Monday - Friday, first thing when I wake up.

I plan on just picking out 5 different exercises I can do with either my weights, ball, or body weight (ie. lunges) and do each exercise for one minute.  The old me would think this is ridiculous and not even worth the effort, but it will be 25 more minutes of exercise than I did last week, and the point is I'm starting out slow and steady so that I can develop the habit.  If I don't feel like doing it one day all I have to tell myself is, "it's only 5 minutes, how hard is that?"  Also hopefully by the time I work up to my goal of 45-60 minutes, five days a week, it won't be so painful for my body.

These past two weeks I have felt a huge sense of accomplishment that I have stuck to something for two whole weeks.  Sure they were super easy goals, but still, I did it!  And hopefully by adding on just a little at a time it will always be easy and never hard or tiring.


C.S. Lewis said, " What saves a man, is to take a step; then another step."   That is my favorite quote these past couple of weeks.  I keep repeating it to myself when I wonder if these little efforts will work.  Notice he didn't say, what saves a man is to take one GIANT leap.