Mind the Beginner

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?