Dreams Happen One Shovel at a Time

Today we went to visit our new house Maggie, to do a little cleaning. It wasnt clear to me what my husband meant when he said "clean a little", so I took 2 broomsticks and a broom and wore clogs for the day trip.

The developer didn't bother to have the perimeter cleaned to remove the debris left over from the construction, so yeah the grounds were kinda dirty. So that's where we started cleaning. I got my broomstick and started sweeping the sidewalk, removing sand, gravel and stones. My husband made a makeshift shovel out of a slab of iron sheet he found somewhere, and shoveled as I swept. 30 minutes into my task, I was tired already and we weren't even 20% done. There had to be a better way to do this, I thought. The job was too big for the tools we had on hand.

Where's the darn sidewalk?

The village only had 25 residents, it was very new. On our street, only 2 houses were occupied. I went over to the house nearest to us and asked if they had a shovel. Luckily, they did. I took my loot back to my husband and we resumed working. As I watched hubby shoveling gravel and then crossing the road to dump it on an unoccupied lot, I realized he needed a pail or something. Just walking back and forth was tiring and unnecesary... if only we had a pail so we can remove more with less effort. I went into one of the half finished houses and waddya know, the workers left a small empty paint pail. 

With the pail and shovel, we made better progress... and as we went along, we gained rhythm and momentum. Sweep debris into one corner, shovel.. sweep, shovel... in a short time, we can see the pavement and the border of our property. It was manual labor and tiring! We're not even fond of exercising. Halfway through, we were breathing hard and started to feel muscles we didn't know we had. We took turns resting and continued at a slower pace.. slower, but every shovel surer. We could see the result of our efforts.. we could see the end... and we pushed on.

As I rested my aching hands and wobbly legs, I looked at our handiwork and thought how similar this small experience was to life. (One gets philosophical when very tired ^^,)

That's Better!

We have dreams and goals but we sometimes don't know how to make them come true. We lack the tools and we make excuses and they never happen.  But in truth, all that was needed was to begin somewhere. We often her people say, "I'm not ready" or "I'll start someday when I'm ready." When are we ever really ready? Looking back on my life, most of my successful decisions were made on impulse. I made a decision and just winged it. Cause when will I be ready?

Now is as good as tomorrow.

Decide to do something and then do whatever is necessary to make it work, whatever comes your way. If it doesn't work, well, we can always adjust our dreams. That's the great thing about it. The fear of failure and the hard work required, are often the reasons we stay at a standstill - with our dreams shelved, waiting for who knows what. So, we make excuses about not being ready and other reasonable sounding crap.

Your dreams are waiting for you. Pick up that broomstick and shovel and start somewhere.

Be ready - now. Whatever happens, I'm sure that the thought of your dreams becoming reality, will keep you sweeping that road  - though your hands are tired and your back is aching. 

Big or small, it only takes one thing to reach your goals. You need to decide to begin.

That's all. 

.... and along the way... don't forget to look for a pail. :)