make small steps

arich told me “you can only eat the elephant one bite at a time.”

“who eats elephants? that’s horrifying!”

“it’s just a saying.”

“ugh, but i hate it. elephants shouldn’t even be considered for eating.”

“the point,” he tried to steer me back on track and away from the elephant eaters, “the point is to break it down into something more manageable. if it’s too big, do the smallest easiest thing first. then the next.”

i was 22, putting rent on my credit card, carless in LA, nothing was small or easy. i was astrologically doomed to be dramatic and drowning in it. to a cancer sun, cancer rising, everything is too big to swallow and isn’t it your duty to suffer? or is that part the catholicism? or the asian parent guilt? or both?