The young acolyte, the one who was a little too smart for his own good and a little too fond of asking challenging questions, went to the wisest of all the the monks and, with less than perfect humility, said, “Sifu, you have said that the evolution of the business of one who works for themselves mirrors the growth of their soul.”
The wisest monk looked at the acolyte with a slightly sardonic eyebrow and replied, “Yes, I have.”
“I do not understand, sifu. Please allow me to drink from the fountain of your wisdom.”
The wisest monk may possibly have twitched the corner of her mouth in amusement. “Let us use an example that is close to your memory. Remember that on your first day, you were told to scrub the Mountain-Spanning Stairs of Enlightenment.” The sudden wince on the acolyte’s face showed that he remembered it clearly. “Tell me about this task.”
“As you know, most enlightened, the stairs are most steep, and very numerous. Each step must be scrubbed forcefully and then rinsed with clean water from the well at the bottom of the three thousand steps. Some fools think it would be simplest to start from the bottom of the steps, but they soon realise that the rinsing water from the steps above undoes their work. The smartest start at the top, and run down the three thousand stairs each time to refill their bucket.”
“Now, you have seen that there are some who fail in this task.”
“Yes, sifu. Some give up when they have run a hundred thousand paces and realised that they have only cleaned seventeen of the steps.”
“Yes, those are the unenlightened. We can only pity them. And you have seen those who start with great energy… like youself if I remember correctly, which of course I do.”
The acolyte looked down and muttered, “Yes, sifu.”
“Ah, the enthusiastic! How they run up and down the stairs when they start, how they fling about the water! But eventually, all limbs grow tired. What happens to the enthusiastic then?”
Said quietly and with no arrogance at all, “They take a rest.”
‘Oh-ho! They take a rest! Indeed, they sit down and rub their feet and rub their knees and they puff and they pant and they stay there until they are caught and kicked halfway down the stairs, are they not?”
“Yes, sifu. That is what happens.”
“Those are the beginners on the path.”
“So when does one attain true mastery?”
“Young and impatient one, you will be a master when you can keep moving up and down those stairs when you are exhausted, beaten and cold. When no matter what happens, you keep moving forward, even at a much slower pace than you use when you are in the best of health. And one by one, the stairs are scrubbed.”
“I don’t understand what this has to do with the growth of a business or a business owner’s soul.”
“Well, you’re an idiot then.”
The moral of the story
There are a number of people who don’t entirely believe me when I say that I used to be the world’s laziest woman.
But I was! At the first sign of discomfort or frustration or no-fun… I would quit.
“Oh, but Catherine!” say these people. “You wrote a post every day for ten months! Even when you were sick! Look at all the work you’ve done! Etc!”
All I can say is that I learned one bit of wisdom:
Right now, there is only ONE step I need to climb.
The rest of the steps (kudos to the first person who figures out the math and says how many there are in total) are not relevant. Right now, the only thing I have to figure out is how to get up this step right here.
[The amazing Colin says it's 9,003,000. Math god.]
Once I’ve done that, the new problem will be the step after it. But it’s only one step; I’ll find a way to climb it.
People are often described as wanting “silver bullet” solutions. But I think much more often what we really want are montages.
We want to skip the hard, boring monotonous work of climbing one damn step after another; instead we want a rockin’ guitar solo and some quick edits, and get right to the end… where we’re standing triumphant at the finish line shouting ADRIANNNN.
Sorry. There’s no such thing, except…
… except when you look back on how you got from there to here. From that perspective it looks a lot like a montage. (But you still had to climb all those fucking stairs to get here.)
I’ve gotten a lot done by climbing one step, over and over (and over). How about you?
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