One Step at a Time

As has become our custom (okay, we’ve done it twice), my wife and I walked around Mission Bay this past weekend. Not only does this provide great exercise under the pretense of going out to see beautiful scenery (I don’t need to trick myself into exercise, but it helps), it also gives me a chance to collect my thoughts, such as they may be.

My current level of fitness is such that I can really enjoy the first 5 miles or so of our walk. I’m looking at the water, pointing at birds, and generally radiating an aura of contentedness that borders on nauseating.

But where things get interesting is in those last 2 1/2 miles. I’m not in pain, but there is a little discomfort happening. I’m taking extra hits of sports drink, and maybe getting overly territorial about the energy bar in my pocket. People who witnessed my earlier, nauseating state of contentedness are now mocking me, smug in their knowledge that all is not well.

Okay, maybe not. But those last 2 1/2 miles are a struggle. And where there’s a struggle, there’s often a lesson (sometimes there’s just a struggle, but bear with me). In this case, the lesson is about focus.

Every distraction that had given me such great pleasure during the “content” phase of the walk was now a burden to me during the “struggle” phase. So I simplified. I bore in mind two things, and only two things:

1. the goal, i.e., reaching the end; and
2. the steps needed to achieve the goal, i.e., putting one foot in front of the other and repeating until I had reached the end.

By narrowing my focus to these two considerations, I was able to complete the task at hand. And in a weird way, I actually found myself enjoying the simple act of taking steps and moving forward, without regard for my beautiful surroundings.

Later, after the obligatory Chinese buffet that seems to follow our long walks, I realized that I apply a similar technique in my guitar playing. When I’m learning a new solo, for example, often I’ll break the piece down into smaller parts and I’ll work on each of the parts in succession, one note at time, until I can string all the notes together.

We could carry the analogy further and note that after several long walks, I can expect to start enjoying the scenery (or at least not thinking so much about steps) even toward the end of my 7 1/2 miles. This would be roughly equivalent to “letting ‘er rip” when recording or performing after having “walked through” the individual parts many times in preparation. No thought, only action.

But we’re not there yet. So we’ll drop the analogy right here and pick it up again some other day.

On this day…

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