A Thousand Miles

Lao-Tzu was a poet and philosopher in ancient China. Despite the fact that Lao-Tzu lived over 600 years before the Common Era began, his writings are still relevant and useful today. In fact, much of what he wrote has entered into popular culture today. For example, we are probably familiar with the saying, “If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.” He also wrote, “Mastering others is strength. Mastering yourself is true power.” And what about, “Music in the soul can be heard by the universe.” Yep, Lao-Tzu again. But the quote that we’re probably all most familiar with, have heard a million times, have seen on posters all over the place, and which speaks volumes to us, is: “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”

Part of me wants to say, “Duh” because it is SO obvious, but because it is so obvious, we seem to overlook it. We focus so much on the end product that we never really get around to starting. Come on – we do it all the time: we think of what a horrendous job painting the house is, so we keep putting it off, we keep looking at that assignment sheet with the word length of 1200 words and we never get past our worry to actually start to chip away at it and put those first few words on paper. We think about the thousand miles and not about the first step. And, after all, isn’t it the first steps that are the most important.

A toddler’s first steps – we film them, we record them, we tell our friends and family because it IS such an important thing. Humankind’s first step on the moon – again, an event that stopped the world because it united everyone in a quest to reach further than we’d ever been before. The first step down the aisle for a bride, the first dance steps together as husband and wife ... all incredibly important because they signify the start of wonderful things to come.

We talk about goals all the time but what is the point of having a goal if you haven’t taken the first step to complete it? To make a dream become reality, that first step, difficult, scary, tentative, must be taken.

I have decided that I am not on one journey but several. One of the many journeys I started was turning words into action. I always felt sorry when I heard that people had been affected by cancer, but what do a few comments like, “That’s terrible” and “She’s so young” really do. So, a few years ago, I took my first step in my thousand miles. I got sponsors and shaved off my hair to raise money for people with cancer. I didn’t know how it was going to turn out, but instead of dreading the worst, I let my determination control that first step. I had a goal for how much I would raise but I doubled that goal. Shaving my hair was a really tough decision, and yet when I look back now, it wasn’t that much of a deal. Now when I am confronted with something difficult, I know that it only looks tough from the before side. Once you have made a commitment or taken that first step, it immediately becomes easier. I think my experience may have even started me on adventurous journey down the path of life!

We don’t have to look far for models of people who took that famous first step. In Canada, Polly Letofsky literally walked over a thousand miles, in a campaign to raise awareness for breast cancer. Polly Letofsky then kept on walking! She became the first woman to walk around the world and now travels as a motivational speaker to inspire thousands of people to take their own first step in their own adventure. Polly says, “We find success through patience, passion and perseverance.