Just One Small Sip

Once upon a time, there was a woman who had been lost in the desert for three whole days without water. Just as she was about to collapse, she saw what appeared to be a lake just a few hundred yards in front of her. “Could it be? Or is it just a mirage?” she thought to herself.

With the last bit of strength she could bring together, she was unable to walk toward the lake and quickly learned that her prayers had been answered: it was no mirage—it was indeed a large, spring-fed lake full of freshwater—more freshwater than she could ever drink in her lifetime. Yet while she was literally dying of thirst, she couldn’t bring herself to drink the water. She simply stood by the water’s edge and stared down at it.

There was a passerby riding on a camel from a nearby desert town who was watching the woman’s unusual behavior. He got off his camel, walked up to the thirsty woman and asked, “Why don’t you have a drink, ma’am?”

She looked up at the man with an exhausted, deeply sad expression across her face and tears welling up in her eyes. “I am dying of thirst,” she said, “But there is way too much water here in this lake to drink. No matter what I do, I can’t possibly finish it all.”

The passerby smiled, bent down, scooped some water up with his hands, lifted it to the woman’s mouth and said, “Ma’am, your opportunity right now, and as you move forward throughout the rest of your life, is to understand that you don’t have to drink the whole lake to quench your thirst. You can simply take one sip. Just one small sip… and then another if you choose. Focus only on the mouthful in front of you, and all your anxiety, fear and overwhelm about the rest will gradually fade.”

Challenge yourself throughout the day to focus solely on the sip (task, step, etc.) you’re actually taking.

Honestly, that’s all life is—small, positive actions that you take moment by moment, and then one day when you look back it all adds up to something worthwhile—something that’s often far better, and different, than what you had imagined when you started.