By Yamila García
When you are attentive, everything around you can teach you something. I was sitting next to a friend at an event when I saw her take a stack of cards that had been printed with the wrong date. She took a pen and started correcting them one by one. The stack of cards was so big that I thought she would just correct a few for the event attendees. I began to think how nervous it would make me to have to correct them all in the time that the event lasted. Also, I remembered the many times when my pile of pending tasks is large, and I drown in thoughts of fear of not being able to complete them. Then, I spend hours worrying, instead of trying. I watched as she kept correcting cards slowly and carefully, and I thought that she would never be able to correct all of them in such a short time. But she kept going slowly and steadily. I greatly admired her perseverance, and her ability not to get caught up in a hurry. I thought about whether she was aiming to finish them all or if she just kept on consistently without even thinking about having to finish them. How wonderful it would be to be able to have that perseverance and that calm when facing my tasks!
Time passed, and before the event was even over, she had finished correcting all of them. When I saw her from the beginning with that giant stack of cards, I didn’t think she would make it at such a slow pace. However, with her patience and tenacity, she did. She not only did that, but she also inspired me! I went home with great motivation to try to replicate what I had learned from her. I imagined myself sitting in front of my computer, starting with a small task, as if it were a card that I was going to correct, then another task, and thus completing my stack of cards without even noticing it. In order for you to understand how important what I witnessed was to me, you would need to know what the process of completing the same task would be like for me. First, I would choke thinking about the number of cards, then I would probably think about the time I would have, I would divide the number of cards by the time available to know how much I would be able to spend fixing each card, and then finally I would take some time to doubt which would be the best way to do the task, or which would be the best pen to use. Meanwhile, my anxiety would increase more and more, and I would start correcting the cards at an exaggeratedly fast pace. I would feel overwhelmed. I would stop, and I would continue to doubt whether or not I would be able to complete the task… I think at this point you get what I’m trying to say. So, even if we don’t complete the stack of cards, it’s better to have completed some instead of none. Same for homework, chores, work, and everything we have to face in life. Let’s keep moving, slowly but steadily, let’s just sit down and do it, and then let’s see how far we get. Thank you dear friend for this teaching.