When I was growing up the walls of our house were sprinkled liberally with signs. Some of them were just paper. Others were plaques. Some were adorned with animals or scrolled writing. Others were plain words. All of them had cute or insightful “sayings” on them. “World’s Best Mom” they declared, or “This mess is a place”, “To rationalize is to tell yourself rational lies”, etc. They were the kinds of things that frequently end up on bumper stickers, and the all belonged to my mother. It was a vast collection that eventually burned in a house fire. The fact that my mother did not bother to replace them afterward makes me surmise that it was one of those collections that gain their own inertia as everyone kept giving her signs, rather than her own desire to wallpaper her house with “sayings.” I read all of those signs many times over during the years that they hung on the walls. I frequently recall various signs as an appropriate time in my life occurs.
Today I am remembering one sign in particular. It was a hand-lettered sign on plain paper that said “You can even eat an elephant, if you eat it one bite at a time.” We have 5000 books in our garage and a huge task ahead of us to get them all signed, sorted, and prepped for mailing. They weigh as much as an elephant. We have three weeks before the scheduled mailing day, which is more time that we usually allot. However we usually clear the decks of everything else. We have not been able to do that this time, because other people scheduled big things for us, unskippable things like Link’s cub scout Arrow of Light ceremony, an over night camp/hike, a television interview, a tree full of ripe pears, and the annual case lot sale which requires me to haul food home and then put it all away. It is rather like being told that since you’re eating anyway you should have this turkey and that mountain goat to go along with the elephant. So today is the day when we survey the whole project. We assign tasks and goals for each of the days in the next three weeks. Starting tomorrow, we’re no longer allowed to look at the whole elephant. Instead we have to focus only on the chunk allotted for that day. Once we start eating, we’ll only get depressed if we contemplate how much there is still to be done.
I’d be tempted to make my own copy of the sign and hang it on the wall as a reminder, except that I don’t want to start a collection such as the one my mother acquired. I wonder what task it was in my mother’s life that prompted her to hand write that sign and hang it on the wall. What task did she face that was so huge, she needed a daily reminder to just keep working at it? I suspect it was the task of raising children from babies to adults, a gargantuan task for anyone. I suppose I’ll have to ask her once we’re done with the elephant in the garage.
🙂 Good luck as you work your way through everything.
Idea: You could make your “sayings” desk top pictures and have them rotate like a slide show on your computer. That way you can see them, but won’t have the potential clutter on the walls of your home.
I’d love a list of the sayings you have. I collected them as a teenager and want to begin again. They really did help inspire me and I could use some inspiration in the hustle and bustle of each day.
The Hyperbole Police are after you!
We have 5000 books in our garage… They weigh as much as an elephant.
Ahem. African elephants are the largest land animals with body growth continuing for up to 30 years. Bulls (males) may reach a height of 9-13 feet (3-41/2 m) at the shoulder and weigh between 9,000-13,000 pounds.
C’mon, do those books really weigh two pounds?
There are three saying I use regularly with the sword students.
” how do you eat and elephant? One bite at a time”
” Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water; After enlightenment, Chop wood, Carry water.”
And finally, perhaps most appropriate right now,
“If you find yourself walking through Hell, KEEP WALKING” ( W. Churchill)
I’ve found that they are the ones most applicable to the type of life people lead who are striving.
Good luck to yuo guys. I”ll have some back orders of books for you guys when the job thing flips for me. All in good time.
-S
What task did she face that was so huge, she needed a daily reminder to just keep working at it?
Funny… I always assumed she put them up there for us kids, so that we’d be saturated daily with inspirational messages. It’s a tactic I’d be tempted to employ, except my children don’t read yet 😉
Re: The Hyperbole Police are after you!
Those pallets all together weigh just over 9000 pounds. That number was listed on the delivery bill. Each individual book weighs just under two pounds. So, the hyperbole police can go back to bed. 🙂
Re: The Hyperbole Police are after you!
::sending the order to the Hyperbole Police to stand down::
When I sit down to try to make a list, I can’t remember them all. But I find that they come back to me at appropriate moments.
Wise words. Thanks. Fortunately this particular walk isn’t quite like hell. Hell is not usually something you choose, and we definitely keep choosing this. I hope the job thing flips for you soon.
That theory makes a lot of sense. It would also explain why she didn’t bother to replace them after the fire. By then we were all mostly grown.
I just thought of something. My 94 year old grandmother used to change the sign in front of her Methodist church each week (for 20-30 years!). When her mother died years before, donations were collected to buy the sign in her honor. My grandmother kept a record of all of the “sayings” she posted and one Christmas I typed them up and gave them to each of my siblings in a notebook. Now I want to go pull that notebook out of the bookshelf!