THE FIRST STEP
'Take the first step in faith. You don't have to see
the whole staircase, just take the first step.'
Martin Luther King Jr.
Late last week I was heading to Sydney for work. I was
driven to the airport by an engaging taxi driver, Samuel,
who had come to Australia from his homeland, Ethiopia, some
ten years earlier. I always enjoy talking to taxi drivers -
most of them have the most interesting stories to tell.
Along the way I asked Samuel how he came to make the
decision to move to Australia. He told me that it happened
by accident really. He had been sent to work in Kenya. Each
day for the first two months he would look across the road
to the government building where he had been told they
handled migrant applications. Once day, on an impulse, he
walked across to the building and asked for a copy of the
forms. Unbeknownst to his wife and two children, he filled
out those forms, returned them and then put the matter out
of his mind.
Some months later, back in Ethiopia, he was taken aback
when he received a letter telling him his application was
successful. He didn't know what to do or how to break the
news to his family. He was torn - excited and scared at the
possibility of giving his children the opportunity of a very
different life but saddened also at the prospect of leaving
behind his extended family and his culture. He spoke to his
brother before mentioning it to his wife. His brother said
to him, 'You must go. You are lucky - you have been chosen.'
'I was lucky,' repeated Samuel. 'But you took the first
step,' I countered.
I can't imagine the courage it must take to leave your
homeland, your friends and your culture to move to the other
side of the world. To a place that you know will be so
vastly different; where the language is not your own and
where you are the minority in so many ways. 'In my culture,'
Samuel went on, 'it's normal to yell to your friend from one
end of the bus to the other. We carry on a ten minute
conversation that way.' We laughed at the thought of doing
that here and talked about how dramatic the cultural
differences are. I felt humbled by his story - it made me
think that the small steps I have taken in my own life that
I have considered courageous were nothing by comparison.
It also made me realise how much simpler a decision is
when you only think about taking that first small step.
Having a clear vision for the future is wonderful but
sometimes it's too much to fully perceive a change that is
dramatically different. Sometimes we don't even know what we
want - we just know it's not this. Taking that
first step can seem so difficult but in some ways maybe it's
the easiest part of the process.
If there's even one part of your life that isn't making
you happy, take a small step - today.
- ask that person for coffee
- enrol in that course
- open a savings account
- apply for that job
- be the one to say sorry
- book that trip
- join the gym
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