Do you ever pour energy into a project, a massive waterfall of thundering effort, a veritable Niagara of activity, and find yourself astonished to realize that only a small stream meandering through the undergrowth seems to result? We all have that experience at some point, if we ever try anything big, challenging, and exciting.
We’ve aimed really high, prepared extremely well, worked endlessly hard, and in the aftermath, only a trickle of result seems to ensue. We’re exhausted and bewildered, and perhaps despondent.
The world can sometimes seem set up not to aid or magnify our efforts for good, but to resist them mightily and filter them down to nearly nothing. It can feel like a force field surrounds us and blunts any attempt we might muster for the new great thing. But then, who said anything worth doing would be easy? Why think progress will ever be automatic, that results are guaranteed, or that any of us can work magic through sheer will?
Maybe the world is set up with quite different ends in mind, and among these are growing us in wisdom and strength, and for that, difficulty is needed. Challenge is required. Obstacles must be plenty, and large, and sometimes scary. Perhaps the process is the point. The waterfall itself is what was wanted. And maybe, just maybe, what the world needs right now is precisely that trickle your gushing has produced, along with all the beauty and noise of its production, that small stream fed by your massive cascade of energy. And that just may set you up for what’s next, and next after that, until there is something so wonderful you could never have imagined it, not for a moment, streaming and flowing from all your tries, failures, disappointments, and hopes along the way.
