A single meaningful action

In his latest installment on Sam Harris’ Waking Up, titled You Are Here, Oliver Burkeman makes the crucial distinction between fantasizing about change and taking meaningful action: 

“The grandest life changes are worth absolutely nothing if they continue to exist only on the level of fantasy — whereas a single meaningful action, however small, if you actually take it in reality, well, that action, just on its own, was a real instance of showing up fully for your life.” 

Our ambitions are nothing without the actions we take in support of them. 

And these actions, contrary to popular expectation, do not have to be grandiose. 

If you are in the early stages of making a change, you might approach it the same way a beginner would approach training a marathon. 

Your first day isn’t going to be running the actual marathon — it’s walking, then jogging, jogging a little further, and then working your way up from there. 

Progress, however incremental, is still progress. 

Better to make small, easy, and manageable forward movements every day, than to be paralyzed by the self-imposed expectation that the only changes you’re allowed to make are these “[grand] changes” — the ones we often remain stuck with, precisely because of how grand they are, in fantasy. 

The Daily Spark exists for two reasons:

1. To document one idea every day that I've found helpful in my life.
2. To inspire you to discover what matters most and to take action towards it

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About me:

I'm a second-generation Taiwanese American trying to find life’s greatest sources of meaning and make the most out of it.