...begins with a single step, as the proverb goes. This is true, but it's the time of year where you may be noticing something else. Two weeks ago you may have resolved to do something important over the course of this year. It may have been something big, a journey of a thousand miles per se. Hopefully you took the first step toward that around the same time, but now is the time when something starts to break your stride. That step taken oh so enthusiastically two weeks is taken less frequently. Maybe it's been replaced with something else. Maybe you just don't feel like you have the energy to keep taking it over and over anymore, but that's my point here. OK, metaphor aside I'll state my point clearly. Great things come from small and simple ones, but it's by a continual repetition of them.
Taking the perennial example of New Years resolutions, losing weight, we'll clearly get the picture. My mom talks about the "fake exercisers" at the beginning of each year. Those people who invade her Gym every January. She has nothing against people exercising, rather she's annoyed knowing her spot in the kickboxing class she loyally attends will be taken by someone who'll disappear after six weeks (to be generous). Their thousand mile journey is certainly a worth taking, but they don't actually take it. They take the first step, sure, but quit after a few hundred.
Since I am a mathematician, let's look at how many steps are in a thousand miles. 1,000 miles is 1,609 km. I am a tall guy with long legs and feel OK saying my stride is probably around one meter. Thus I would have to take one million six hundred and nine thousand steps. Realizing this it seems staggering, impossible. That first step is essentially meaningless. However, if I am diligent in taking steps, if I take one step every five seconds, let's say. I can walk almost four journeys of thousand miles over one year. Taking one step every fifteen seconds I can still walk a thousand miles over the course of a year and have a little bit of time left over to, I don't know, eat and sleep.
In summary, to reach a goal-to journey a thousand miles-one must be persistent. Consistency is far more important than enthusiasm. While the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, it's only finished by the willingness and discipline to keep taking steps.
