Imagine if life stretched out in a single span from birth to death, and all you have is a long stretched out span between the start and then end, with no pause in between.
It would be absolute hell on earth. How could you bear to survive in a world like that? A never ending stretch until the precious final release of death.
However it’s not that case — life is, instead, broken down into little boxes.
Each box is a day. Each box is separate and distinct. Sometimes when you’re in a box it seems like that’s all there is and there’s no way out. Sometimes you look at another box and think that it’s an impossible goal because it looks so difficult to get to as you don’t have the skills or experience to get there.
The trick is though, every day you have choices as to where you want to go — there are exits to the box doing in different directions. Some of the directions are positive, and some of the directions are negative. Sometimes, you may have slipped so far into the negative that you cannot conceive of getting to the positive.
However, the thing about the individual boxes is that you only need to deal with the situation one box at a time.
Whether the box is getting practice in your writing,
or the box is managing to to another day without a drink,
or the box is learning more about yourself…
It’s only a small box that you need to get through; you’re not trying to deal with the entirety of your life, you’re just trying to deal with this one small thing called now.
An important thing to remember, though, is that you don’t always have to ‘make progress’. Sometimes the only thing you can do is just get through that single box. The best thing about all these individual boxes is that you get the opportunity to try again the next time. Because no matter how bad it seems to be at this moment in time, you will have another opportunity the next time as long as you get the fact that there will be another time. It’s just a single box away.
We need to aim for progress, not perfection; one day at a time.