Chopping Down the Mightiest Tree in the Forest, with…..
No, not a herring! Although that would be a valid answer.
Do you have huge plans in your life, great big things you want to accomplish, cutting down the mightiest tree with that herring no less? Did you ever actually try chopping down a huge tree? It’s very hard and backbreaking work. Cutting it down to size so you have firewood seems a good idea but again, it takes a lot of time to do that, even with the help of a chainsaw.It’s so much work in fact that you’re never going to do it in your life.
All those wondrous plans you have are those mighty trees. Every single one of them is a huge effort and because it’s an established fact that gen y people expect everything handed on a silver platter you’ll never cut those trees down. You don’t have what it takes, and just so you know, neither do I.
So we have ourselves a small problem don’t we, we want firewood, and lots of it, but we don’t want to chop down that huge tree. But as is the case with most forests, there are much smaller trees there too. Pick on something your own size, it’s much easier to chop down.
The small ones will do
Things get progressively worse though. You start out in life with your mind filled with small trees. These small trees represent everything you want to do in life. Do you recall what you wanted to do back in preschool? You either had unrealistic trees (Becoming an astronaut is quite unrealistic) of you had saplings. A quick swing and you realised what you wanted.
But then you got older, not only did bigger trees materialize in your forest-mind. But those saplings grew and grew too. Some of these saplings turn out to be misconceptions about how life works. A few put you on the wrong path altogether.
Start swinging
As with everything in life you have a choice here. It’s not the choice of starting to gather firewood, that’s just something you’ll have to do in life. It’s where you get it. Will you keep looking up at those huge trees, wishing you had what it takes to take down that tree. Style points are awarded if you chop it down with the herring. You either don’t have enough firewood, or you take down the smaller trees. One day your stamina will definitely be enough, and your skill honed to such a level that those mighty trees are no longer an issue.
But for now, don’t bother with those big ones, there is more than enough to do down here. Not only can you create a fulfilling feeling taking down a tree, but you prevent those small misconceptions from growing to big to handle.
And now real life
All this talking about trees is nice and all, but do you have any idea what I’m talking about here? A small translation seems a good idea:
You can not without considerable luck achieve those huge plans you have without taking on smaller challenges first to hone your skills. As for those misconceptions in life, the longer you let them grown the harder it will be to get rid of them.
What is your mightiest tree?
Hey Christiaan,
I like how you wrote this post. I’m actually kind of glad that you included the “translation” at the end. I was worried that I perhaps translated it incorrectly!
I have to disagree with one statement, however. I think we can take on the big trees. Although there will be lots of steps and fumbles along the way, we must keep working on it. Is there an explicit example in your life that came to mind when you wrote this?
As for my mightiest tree, it’s two-part: #1 min 10K/month through passive and passion income (my way of saying that’s something I enjoy) #2 create and perform with my dream performance troupe
Take care,
Ben
My Biggest Tree: Redesign all public education so it no longer stifles children’s motivation. (Whee! I don’t even know where to begin! XD That’s alright though, I’ll just work at this other sapling over here for the time being.)
Double style points if the herring is red. Triple for creative use of shrubbery. NI!!!
@ Ben
Even with the translation you got it wrong. But that’s just because it’s just words and we have no way of checking if we mean the same thing. But that’s a bit to much of the Zen mind involved there. ;)
Going at the big trees immediately means you don’t have firewood until you succeed. It seems a better idea to have a go at the small trees so you stand a better chance at the big ones. An explicit example… Wanting to be able to build an entire website from scratch comes to mind. To do that I’ll have to take on smaller things first: HTML, XML, CSS, SQL and a few more. Within those there would be even smaller things to do that -although they need to be done- are very simple. The smallest of trees first, I would be very surprised if one of those tiny ones succeeds in withstanding my chop.
How could I ever hope to build a website if I don’t know how to operate a computer. If I don’t know what a website is made of or even if I don’t know how to register a domain. I’ll get back to this in a future blogpost soon. Thanks for the comment Ben
Hey Christiaan,
Ok, I have a better understanding of what you originally meant now. I projected my own translation and life scenarios to the original metaphors and took it to mean something different from what you intended. I think there’s a whole philosophy of language essay somewhere in this discussion. Damn philosophy degree has me dissecting everything I come across.
Thanks for the clarification Christiaan. I think we’re on the same page now (not that disagreement is necessarily bad).
Take care,
Ben