Breath by Breath

Thirty years ago my older brother, who waas ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report on birds written that he’d had three months to write. [It] was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was t the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books on birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sad down beside him, put his arm around my brother’s shoulder, and said, ‘Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.’-Anne Lamott in Bird by Bird; Some Instructions on Writing and Life

I love this story. The advice applies so perfectly to learning how to be happy that a variation on its catch phrase has become my mantra: breath by breath.

Like the boy in the story, we can become paralyzed by the hugeness of the task at hand. Learning to be happy requires rewiring our brains, changing habits we’ve taken decades to develop, and trying to do it all at once will only make it impossible.

However, as we narrow our focus to a few specific goals (e.g. our intention to be happy) in this moment, our lives will grow rich and satisfying seemingly on their own. This limited picture lifts the pressure of the big picture and frees us up to be powerful agents in our lives.

I encourage you to try this out for yourself over the next few days. Feel free to use my mantra whenever you start to loose focus, or try out one that’s personally meaningful.

How did it go? Did anything surprise you?