When the Load is Heavy - Slow and Steady

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of it's own.

- Matthew 6:34

We all have those days: days when our "to-do" list runs off the bottom of the computer screen or runs onto a second piece of paper. There are some things that can be bumped to tomorrow - in the grand scheme they are not the end-all-be-all. But then there are days that you look at the truly urgent items, the truly important tasks and appointments and you realize that not only some of the chaff needs to be bumped to tomorrow but some of the wheat as well. That's a stressful situation.

We are all familiar with the concept that "it will never all get done" but what about those days when it ALL ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY HAS to get done? In the past, I used to get up earlier (showing up at work as early as 2:30am - no joke). I used to surge into the day on a wave of adrenaline. I used to "put the pedal to the metal" - floor it! - and race into an impossible day with a brick wall at the end of it. No more. Nowadays I am more likely to downshift.

Things are going to go wrong.

You will NEVER be in complete control of your day.

So you might as well "Keep Calm and Rock On"

But how do you "Rock On" in the face of an impossible day? I have learned to accept my limitations, downshift and repeat, "Slow and Steady".

My usual routine is to pull up my "to-do" list in Google Tasks each morning and start shuffling things to tomorrow. They won't all get done, so why pretend? I prioritize what is left of the truly important things but even then an impossible day awaits me. It makes you want to quit and sit on the couch all day watching WW2 movies (for me at least). I have already failed and the day hasn't even started.

Slow and Steady


Yes, things go wrong. Yes, I am not totally in control. Yes, I should keep calm. But I also need to Rock On. And the usual frantic charging into the day just no longer works for me.

I have been told that one of the concepts of Alcohol Anonymous is not staying sober for the rest of your life, the rest of this year, month, week, or day but to simply decide "I will not drink right now". You repeat that over and over and you manage to make it through the day, week, month and so on. One foot in front of the other . . .

As anyone who has ever had to literally tow a heavy load (boat, trailer etc) will tell you, when you have a heavy load to pull, the lower gears work better than the upper gears. The upper gears may be faster in general but they don't have enough power to pull the heaviest of loads. In an odd reversal, when you have a heavy load to pull, you will go faster and farther in a lower gear than you will in a higher gear. Slow and Steady is the name of the game.

When I am facing a day in which I know I will not get everything done that needs to be done, I simply decide to put one foot in front of the other "now" - Slow and Steady. It's 6am and I am going to choose put one foot in front of the other until 5pm and then I will allow myself to quit for the day. What gets done, gets done. Tomorrow is another day and if the Lord allows me to live till tomorrow, I will worry about tomorrow when it gets here.

Very, VERY, VERY important things may (and have) fall(en) through the cracks. But at least I have a decent chance of getting the single most important thing on my to-do list done today.

I am going to do the absolute best I can today AND NOT A BIT MORE. Because that really is all that I can do anyway. That's reality. No point in "losing it" in a stew of frustration, anger and depression at not being able to do the impossible.

BTW - If you want to shriek and wail that I am not doing enough fast enough - downshift yourself and pitch in or go tell it to your shrink. In the meantime I will Keep Calm and ROCK ON Slow and Steady in the lowest, most powerful gear . . .

That Figures

We Shall See

Keep Calm - Rock On

When the load is heavy - Slow and Steady.