How to Eat an Elephant

I’ve been talking recently about life advice. This may lead one to wonder “Brent, where did you get this advice from?” I’ll admit, most of the advice I give is over things that have gone wrong in my life. Very, very wrong.

One of my major failings in life is giving up too easily. As someone with autism, I am often overwhelmed by how big the world is. All too often, multiple things happen at once, and I get carried away by them. I get frustrated. I lose my temper. I get angry at myself for not being competent enough to handle the task in front of me, which turns into anger at the world for not giving me the space to think. And then I give up. I decide that what I need is a breather, so I go to watch videos or hang out with online friends. One hour turns into two, turns into three, turns into four. Pretty soon, I’ve whittled away the day. By the time that I have taken ahold of myself, it’s far, far too late.

This bad habit of mine has caused my family no end of grief, but this became a big problem when I went to college. But I’ve talked about this time of my life before, but it bears repeating. In hindsight, I could have done a lot better in college had I the discipline. But my main issue at the time was my ability to overwhelm myself. I would look at the tasks in front of me, get frustrated before I even started, and then go and waste time. This had a cumulative negative effect that wore me down. Only by kicking this habit in the rear did I finish college stronger than ever.

How do you overcome this? My mother always answered that question with another question: how do you eat an elephant?  The correct answer was, of course, “one bite at a time.” In a word, incrementalism.

Only by taking things one step at a time could you accomplish the tasks before you. Every time I followed this strategy, I succeeded. Every time I didn’t, I failed. No matter how talented or smart you think you are, at the end of the day, you are one person. You cannot take on the entire world – at least, not all at once. One of the things I do to counter this is to set goals for myself and reward myself when I achieve them. For example, if I finish this blog by 6:15 PM, I get to have free time to surf the Internet or go to the book store! A checklist is always helpful for times like these, as I pointed out in my post on New Years’ resolutions.

This is how I write long essays on various subjects. Every time I have an idea for what I want to write, I write it down. And then I write down a little more. And a little more. Then, once I gather all the bits that I want, I rearrange them in the correct order. Eventually, the whole thing comes together into an essay that I can give to my teacher. In this way, my writing works a bit like solving a jigsaw puzzle. Even the blog you’re reading is the result of such a method. Bet you couldn’t tell, huh?

If you follow this advice, you won’t have to give in to despair. I know that that’s a temptation when the task ahead of you is so big. There’s a temptation to throw in the towel when things get too tough, and sometimes, you do have to cut your losses and give up. But you can’t give up just because the task seems difficult. Sometimes, the most difficult things are the most worthwhile.