Paving the way, one stone at a time. The future is built in the present, one step at a time.
Whenever I say “one step at a time”, friends tell me that I am not “thinking enough about the future”, or planning for the future. They say, this is short termism.
I admit that it’s entirely possible that one can plan more for the future. But whatever plans for the future, the most important building block for the future is the present moment.
The past has gone. The future has not come. Only the present is available.
It seems that it’s not easy for folks to be present in the moment, be focussed on the current step being taken and at the same time without forgetting the direction and intent.
One step at a time is stating the obvious. And the future is only built in the present.
Many of us have big and abstract goals. When they are big and abstract, and in the future, it’s very easy to see them only as goals. When we know the goals, but only take the small next step in the present, we are actually doing something practical and achievable, our body and our mind are here together.
Like paving the way from here to Rome, we know we are paving one stone at a time in the direction of Rome. But we put all our being and energy into paving the stone we are holding. We are not concerned with the next stone, or the stone tomorrow morning. It doesn’t matter whether we will break our neck tomorrow or whether we will continue exactly as we are doing today, right now the only thing we do is to put our whole mind and being into paving the stone we are holding at this moment.
One stone at a time. That’s how the Pyramids were built and every road ever built was built. We have a direction but we can only do it one stone at a time and respond to every moment in that moment with the mind and body present in the moment, at the place.
I am curious, do we have any other option but to pave “one stone at a time”?