Small steps with a chainsaw

Chapter 348

"It is better to take many small steps in the right direction than to make a great leap forward only to stumble backward." ~ Louis Sachar

Most of our knowledge and understanding is built on smaller blocks of acquired information and experience from living life. When we take that information and experience, we combine it and make knowledge and understanding and we can move in the right direction. If we keep the process moving in small incremental steps, this can serve us well our entire lives. A continual expansion of our abilities and competencies.

But sometimes for many folks, and often for unfortunate others, this combination of information - experience - knowledge - understanding gives us overconfidence, a false sense of certainty, a fatal surety that we understand more than we actually honestly do. It’s an easy mistake to make. I do this occasionally, and even Earl the master guru does this occasionally. We did it this week in fact.

We have a very rapid growing oak tree in the yard, and that is rare, because oak trees don’t usually spread out as fast and this one is determined to do. So it become apparent that we had to trim this tree up because of it blocking other things, like the road. We have trimmed this tree before. Many times. This time however, we placed a ladder on a limb without all the proper calculations. Long story short, a quick few minutes later found me falling out the tree with a live chainsaw running in my grip!! This is a literal “stumble backwards, except from 15 feet off the ground. But the chainsaw!

I did not need another fall, coming so closely after my dead armadillo flight, and my ankle is badly twisted, but thank God the chainsaw did not connect with any live human limbs throughout this fiasco. 

Take small regular steps. Think.