Master Kim had summoned a few of the black belts to his house to help him move a few things around. When they arrived, he asked them to move a pile of rocks from one side of the garden to the other. It seemed like a lot of rocks and a lot of work. They started to grumble a bit, but he would hear none of it. Although he left them with, "if you take one rock at a time, you will finally have no more rocks to move."
They started off moving a few of the rocks and began to protest. How would they move all these rocks? It was ridiculous! Master Kim said something like, "every rock brings you closer to where you need to be. It seems like the greatest challenge, but start with a few and you will finally finish what you have set out to do. Every great feat is achieved one step at a time. One rock at a time. Why try moving the whole mound when you should only be looking at one piece? How do you attain the perfect sidekick without correcting the details? One element at a time."
---- Before I really learned to live by these words, I was constantly frustrated that I had so much to do. But I realized that lamenting over the amount I had to do was causing me to lose focus and hope. But when I realized, everything I do, every step I take, every kick I do, every part of a math problem I do leads me to where I am going, I worked harder. When I was looking too much at the mountain in front of me, I learned to break the mountain and carry one rock at a time. The mountain may never go away, but sometimes, the flood of relief from looking up and realizing the mountain isn't so big anymore is worth every drop of sweat it took to break the rocks down.