One thing at a time

We cannot fight every fight, embrace every cause, grab every opportunity. Whoever told us that definitely lied. One time or another, one thing or another, we will have to choose.

We cannot talk about every subject, all languages, choose all paths to follow. A lot of them? Yes. Many of them? Sure. But absolutely everything? Humanly impossible, I am sorry to tell you that.

And what do we do? We try to fight every fight. To embrace every cause and grab every opportunity. The problem is, we are one, with only one heart, two arms and a brain that is normally very confused. Did someone ever told you that who chooses everything, at the end doesn’t choose a thing? That who chooses to stay on the fence will probably stay in it forever? I know, choosing is a hard task, especially with so many options.

But there are conversations you can keep at the bar. There are causes that don’t align with our truth, and opportunities that are not ours to take. Willing to grab everything is an invitation to get stuck with so many thoughts, ideas and directions. Want to deal with everything is an invitation to escape, to run away at the first opportunity when you see its humanly impossible to do everything. Especially at the same time.

And we keep on going anyway, pretending we are super-heroes and wanting more, doing more, on our own time, rushing and rushing. And then we have to remind ourselves of this important mantra:

One thing at a time.

One

Thing

At

A

Time.

Life is choosing your battles, wanting or not. It is not to put out fire all the time — especially the ones that are not ours. Is to recalculate routes if necessary, but to choose at least one. Or two. But let them at least talk, get along. Is to understand we can show parts of us, but we don’t need to show it all if we don’t want to. Is to understand that even if we want the world, we need to learn how to walk in our neighbourhood first.

Limitations and choices are actually liberating. Or it can be, if we choose to look at it this way.

It is always the way we look at things, to what we decide to look at. And if we understand that is one thing at a time, maybe we stop grabbing what is not ours to be, we fight the fights we really want to and we embrace the causes that fits in our arms.

Easy? Not at all. But we keep on repeating the mantra.