Pushing The Boulder

In front of you is a boulder; large, grey and solid.

You hate this boulder. Every day you must push it. Every day your muscles strain and you reach the point of exhaustion just to get it to roll a few feet. Sometimes, you’re too tired. You look at the boulder, with its hard, grey exterior, and you just can’t bring yourself to push anymore. So, you rest by the side of the road. You want to quit.

Sometimes, though, you attack it with vigorous intensity. You feel strong, and as you heave with your muscles and gain leverage with your body, it responds. It moves slowly at first, but then the momentum builds. Soon, you reach a point where it feels like it’s moving itself. These are the best days. Everything clicks. There are no snags in the road, no hills to push the boulder up. Instead, the boulder just rolls and rolls and you have little do to maintain its momentum.

Most days, though, it won’t move. You lodge your back up against it, spread your feet wide apart, bend your knees and push with everything you’ve got. But nothing happens. You drive and drive and drive but it just won’t budge.
So you rest, telling yourself that you’ll move it the next day. But the next day is the same, as is the day after that. That damn boulder just won’t move.
Eventually, after a week pushing, it gives a few feet. This seems like a result. You’ve managed to move what appears to be an immovable object. But, then you look back and think. You remember all the blood, sweat and tears, all the exhaustion and effort and you’ve only managed to push the boulder a few feet. So much effort for so little return.

But what can you do?

You know if you stop you’ll never get where you want to go. That boulder is your salvation. That boulder is your ticket to a better life. So, reluctantly, you push again. You heave and it still hurts but this time there is comfort in the knowledge that this suffering has meaning.

Then, one day, while resting and drinking by a river, you catch a glimpse of yourself in the reflection. What you see surprises you. That boulder has made you strong. The muscles bulge from your frame. You’re no longer that scrawny kid who started out on a journey with dreams of moving mountains.

Buoyed by the site of your strength, you attack the boulder with even greater intensity. And it moves. Sure, it’s slow but it’s moving. So you keep pushing and pushing. It’s still painful, you still put in way more effort than you receive in results, but you KNOW you have the power to move that boulder.

And this is life for you. That boulder will always be there. Your job will always be to move it.

But, as the years pass, you begin to love the pain. You love that aching feeling in your muscles and the cascading sweat. You love it because you know what it means — GROWTH!

So, you keep going and going. Eventually, you cover miles, nations and continents. You learn the truth that nothing can stop you SO LONG AS YOU KEEP ON PUSHING!

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(image taken from Gerard Van Der Leun photostream flickr.com)