I've been thinking a lot lately about how life is best digested in small bites. Just like Dr. Leo Marvin tells Bob Wiley in the always-hilarious classic What About Bob? - "baby steps." The more you think ahead and compound all of the things that are approaching (be it daily, monthly, yearly, or your entire lifespan), the more daunting those tasks are. When I think ahead to the next year I'm faced with terrifying prospects: we'll be up for a lease renewal in January, we have a full year of grueling medical school to get through, we have a wedding to plan and pay for, we have travel to book! It's too much to comprehend all at once and sends me into a panic spiral.
I was just out with a friend tonight discussing her upcoming life events and she has a baby on the way. Her list of daunting tasks is even more scary than mine! She has a baby coming (and a nursery to complete, and a new house to furnish and prep for a child, and travel, and work, and everything). We both just shook our heads at the massive to-do list that we both face and feel equally crippled by.
I think that the key is to not let it cripple you. Thinking of making an entire gift registry full of must-have items for Ben and I's wedding is daunting. Picking out one plate tonight online is not so daunting. Trying to design an entire nursery is scary! Picking out a crib and getting it set up, that seems a lot more doable. It's all about those baby steps, my fellow Bobs of the world, baby steps.
I am going to try to think more consciously about chewing off smaller bites of life before approaching big things. Next on my list? Get Ben and my brother to Macy's this weekend to try on wedding attire. After that? Who knows! It's time for small bites and I need to finish digesting that one before I even think about chewing another.