The big picture? Better to resize it!

The Boston Globe

Beverly Beckham

It's perennial wisdom, the stuff of graduation cards and a top contender on lists of ``best advice.'' You have to look at the big picture. This is what we tell our kids and it's what responsible adults told us. The big picture is the Holy Grail. To be a success, you have to know where you are going and you have to have a plan. ``Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars.'' I have always loved this analogy. But the truth is I find the big picture - from the simplest question asked of a child, ``What do you want to be when you grow up?'' to the most complex asked years later, ``What's it's all about, Alfie?'' - overwhelming.

And so I try not to look at the big picture. I take life one day, sometimes one hour, at a time. It gets me in trouble at Christmas. But look ahead? I don't.

I broke this rule last week, though. I looked outside and saw not the sun and the sky and a world freshly turned green, but my little insignificant yard magnified, in high definition and in need of a lot of work. Weeds, weeds everywhere, and so many overgrown things, azaleas and rhododendrons and hosta in need of pruning. A huge dead oak tree, smack in the middle of my front lawn. Pachysandra gone wild. Grass that needed cutting and edging, and a garden that needed weeding and mulching, and flowerpots and window boxes full of last year's dead things. And lawn furniture that needed washing and a deck that needed painting and stairs that needed staining.

On and on it went.

And instead of feeling energized and motivated - seeing the whole picture and being prepared to work hard until it is a beautiful picture - I felt defeated. ``I cannot do this,'' I said out loud to no one and closed all the doors. The big picture was simply too big to deal with.

Two days later, I put on my gardening gloves, grabbed the wheelbarrow and rake and clippers and weeding tool, and began working in my garden. I didn't have a plan. It was early morning and cool and shady and the garden beckoned. My feet were pulled to it. It was slow going, but I didn't look up and around at everything else that needed to be done. I stuck to what was right in front of me. I pulled weeds. I dug up a dead tree. I trimmed back a Moonlight Broom that was woody and never turned yellow this year, and I cut back a butterfly bush that was overtaking the garden. I worked all morning, and when I finally stopped to eat lunch, I was nowhere close to finished. But I didn't care. I wasn't looking at what was left to do. I was concentrating on what had been done. `

`Wee steps and slow.'' This was top on my Scottish mother-in-law's list of best advice. What it means is that Rome wasn't built in a day. Or as Dory said to Nemo, ``Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming.''

Maybe the advice we should pass on not just to graduates but to each other is Lao Tzu's ``A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.'' Or Nike's ``Just do it.'' Because when you're standing on the shore and looking ahead and there's an ocean to cross; or when you're surveying your grub-eaten grass and rotted-out trees and you're not Paul Bunyan, the tasks at hand seem daunting.

But if you just get out there and start - start swimming or weeding or laying the stones - a task becomes manageable. Wee steps and slow. Why? Because - and this is my favorite advice - tomorrow is another day.