The best selling book Chicken Soup for the Soul may have sold over 8 million copies in over 39 languages, and Times magazine called it “the publishing phenomenon of the decade,” but did you know that it was less of a publishing phenomenon and more of a phenomenon of persistent effort..? Thousands of individual activities by authors Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen added to that one large success of the book.
They followed one simple advice from Ron Scolastico who told them, “If you would go every day to a very large tree and take five swings at it with a very sharp ax, eventually, no matter how large the tree, it would have to come down.”
I think that advice also holds true on how to go about life.
Let's take life as a big slice of cake... It may be tasty and all, but there's no way you can put it all in your mouth in one go (unless you'd want to choke). What you do is you get a fork, take a piece of it, and put it in your mouth. You chew and you swallow... Once done, you get another piece and do it all over again. To finish it all, you may have to swallow parts that you like, and parts that you don't.
I, for one, usually have the tendency to get overly excited when I start something, and once that excitement is used up, I get too bored to finish. Probably most people can relate to this, otherwise most of us wont keep having the same New Year's resolution every year. We bake a cake that's too big for us to finish and we lose interest eating it!
I found a remedy for my bad habit by dividing one major goal into several smaller ones that I can “chew” on easily. In that way, I don't get too overwhelmed or anxious, and I always have something to look forward to, especially when I get to the parts that I don't like. I try to tackle step one first, then move on to step two, then so on...
I remember reading about a man named Terry Fox who lost his right leg to cancer, but embarked on a cross-Canada run called the Marathon of Hope in 1980 to raise money for cancer research. Due to having an artificial leg, he had to shuffle and hop to cover ground, but would still conquer around 24 miles per day – which was close to a 26 mile marathon every single day! He ran a total of 143 days and covered 3,339 miles before having to abandon his run because the doctors discovered cancer in his lungs. He died a few months later but left a legacy on his passing. Annual Terry Fox runs are held worldwide that has so far raised more than $340 million for cancer research. When asked how he kept himself going as exhaustion set in and he had thousands of miles ahead of him, he answered, “I just keep running to the next telephone pole.”
The book of 1 Corinthians tells us to run in such a way as to get the prize (9:24). And in life, we cannot get to the price unless we pace our lives so that our passion may be sustained, whether in ministry, relationships or career. Because life (and the Christian faith) is definitely not a sprint but a marathon.
God bless!
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Reference: The Success Principles by Jack Canfield
I value additional insights and feed back, your comments are appreciated.
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