I am very fond of the use of metaphors, which are basically comparisons of similar ideas or subjects that may help in clarifying their meanings. One that I always enjoyed is this one: When you’re thinking of painting a castle, perhaps the best way to begin is by taking one turret at a time. In other words, if we find ourselves absolutely snowed by things in front of us to do, how about picking out just one place to begin? Hopefully the progression should be obvious. If we can find one small way to create an opening, the whole, imponderable pile in front of us starts to become more manageable. Frantic never helps...
Frantic never helps. I discovered this years ago as I found myself overwhelmed by big picture concerns and had no idea where to start. There always is a starting place, but we often need to narrow our focus so that we can find an opening. Scattered searching won’t do it. There is no question that narrowed, contained thinking is difficult to do at a time when ideas, challenges, possibilities and demands are thrown at us every day, sometimes packaged so cleverly that our eyes bounce from idea to possibility to distraction without settling anywhere.
Dancing with interesting distractions...
All depends, of course, on how much we want to actually accomplish. Dancing with interesting distractions we can always do and never really resolve anything, which is ok if that’s what we want. But if we actually want to gather some arrows into our quiver (nice metaphor—yes?), we might keep our eye on one turret at a time.
Sometimes little really is big!
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