“The first step towards getting somewhere is to decide you’re not going to stay where you are.” (John Pierpont Morgan)
I really didn’t have any Christmas decorating spirit this year, which is no different than how I felt about decorating for Halloween just over a month ago as well. With the continuing worldwide COVID pandemic, our seriously divided country on leadership, and of course my ever-present frustrations surrounding my health, it honestly feels as if I’ve been zapped of any drive to participate in any annual holiday decorating festivities. But, something I learned long ago when I was going through my first bout of severe depression is that sometimes you just have to begin somewhere by simply deciding you’re not going to stay where you are.
Ultimately, there are times I’ve found that life truly requires me to take a baby step forward, even when I haven’t felt like it. There’s been plenty of those moments over the past 25 years of my life where my mind would tell me why bother doing anything, that it wasn’t worth it, while my Spirit attempted to tell me exactly the opposite. It’s so hard sometimes to listen to the Spirit though when going through severe bouts of depression or anxiety, or any of those really trying times in life. Because during those periods, the mind often tells an individual to just give up. Unfortunately, doing so prevents any further forward momentum in life, which is exactly what my mind has been attempting to convince me to do these past few months.
Thankfully, I know well enough now that sometimes I just have to take those blind steps forward doing the very thing I have no energy to do, because every single time I have, that energy has suddenly materialized to keep doing it. And once it does, it’s always been enough to propel me to complete whatever the task was that I initially had no energy to pursue.
Halloween and Christmas decorating were two of those very tasks that I really didn’t have any desire to do this year in light of how low I’ve been feeling. But in both cases, I made the conscious decision to just begin because I didn’t like that feeling of where I was at either. So, I began decorating one day in both cases, and sure enough, the energy to continue and to complete the tasks actually did show up.
So, if you should ever find yourself in a low place in life with little to no desire to do much of anything, sometimes the best thing you can do for yourself is simply to decide you’re not going to stay where you are. And once you do, take a small step forward into the unknown by starting even the smallest of task, as there’s a pretty good chance once you do, that you’ll find the energy to finish whatever it is and even more energy to keep moving forward.
Dear God, thank you for always helping me to take those small steps forward in life, even when my mind has tried to convince me otherwise. For I know every time I have, my Spirit has provided me what I need to keep going and to not give up.
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson
