Burning desire from your Summer campfire in nine special "un-romantic" lessons

Hear the crashing waves?  Do you smell the salty air?    There's nothing like a romantic, night at the beach with a crackling fire, wine and cheese, sand between your toes, and the woman of your dreams.  Only in this case, let me take you to a slightly different place.  Yes, there is a crackling fire.  You could say there was some sand.  And that's where the similarity takes an abrupt 180 degree turn...to blood, sweat, and tears.

Have you ever "planned" on cleaning up your residential grounds for an hour or so only to spend almost all day on it?   Was your original plan "realistic"?   Try this.  The stubborn perfectionist in you takes over.   Every time you clean something up, you notice something else in the yard that needs a "touch-up".    Well, that's the wild adventure I experienced recently.  "Honey are you done yet," became the phrase of the day.   In the end, I ended up with a huge pile of small trees, shrubs, branches and other organic, yard debris.  It was about my height, very wide, and so dense you couldn't see the ground anywhere through it.  It's like I had a National Geographic collection of every tree and shrub specimen growing on our planet.   Now I could literally see the forest through the trees.   Then I heard something moving in the pile.

Enter campfire.  No, not the enticing beach one, silly.  Put your Barry White .mp3 on mute.   I had to make ash, while the sun shined.   The plan was to burn the outrageous pile until it didn't exist.  My clothes were dripping wet with sweat.  I was tired, dehydrated, achy, and had a powerful, passing thought of dousing myself with chilly, garden hose water and calling it a day.   However, my next goal towards my ultimate goal, was to steadfastly complete the "little", should-have-been-one-hour, project.  I wouldn't go one more day looking at the huge pile.  I wanted my "precious" grounds to be the masterpiece, I had originally envisioned.   Otherwise my trim work and debris harvest would have been in vain.  However, the pile looked ominous!  

"What was I thinking?", I asked myself too many times to count.     Of course, that was because every piece had to go into about a two-feet wide by 8-inch deep fire pit for safety, due to my surroundings.  There was lots of fragrant, moist, green wood and foliage in the pile that would need good heat to incinerate it.   Fortunately, there was lot's of crispy, dry kindling, albeit long, scaly, dry branches keeping the anti-burn debris company.   I gazed at my saw and mega-sized pruners.  It was time to dispose of "Mt. Everest", limb by limb, with these relatively tiny tools and my bare hands.  Grrrr....attack!

I systemized the removal of the debris in the spirit of Henry Ford, for maximum efficiency.  I cut small pieces that were sized for the fire pit, after lighting the "campfire" for the very first mound of debris.   Then the laborious repetition, began.  Saw, prune, snap!  Saw, prune, snap, ouch!  I had to patiently let each mound burn down before adding the next.  If I failed to cut the pieces, or tried to take a short cut, it made it very frustrating.  The interwound, straggly, debris wouldn't entirely fit in the fire pit,  poking out like a spire, and the protective cover wouldn't stay in place to avoid airborne hot ash.  I'd have to fetch one of my tools and do ad hoc trimming while hot ash and smoke wafted into my face and  burned my eyes into raisins.

As this tedious process continued, it seemed like I was paddling upstream with a toothpick.  It was taking forever. I couldn't see ground through the pile yet.  I felt like I already drank an entire town reservoir to keep up with the jets of sweat pouring out of me.  The sweat began to look like the Mississippi river, both in volume and now in texture and color since volcanic-like, black ash began to rain down on my head.   I stayed on course.   This infamous pile would be gone, even if it killed me.  Saw, prune, snap! Saw, prune, snap!   Then, finally a few, long hours later, I got a glimpse of ground.   On that ground, something moved. Then something struck me like a bolt of lightening. 

I saw a small, patched, knobby toad on the ground on the bottom of one end of the pile staring up at me as if I stole the emperor's clothes.  While, he hastily, hopped for cover at a nearby bush, to avoid being a neighoring hawk's next five-star meal, I once gain realized that there were some important, inspiring lessons learned by this memorable pile of forest I was widdling through.  I've learned these lessons in other contexts, but were represented now in an interesting way.  These reinforced lessons were welcome mind entertainment, as the hours passed, and my sweat continued to stream onto the earth.  When I concentrated on the reinforcement of important lessons that were brought to light via this different context, I was inspired.  When I concentrated on achieving my sub-goals, one at a time, while keeping my ultimate goal in mind, I was inspired.  Then the pile disappeared before I knew it.  The lessons remained.  My ultimate goal was accomplished.   So let me share with you the lessons from this experience. 

1.)  Never give up.  Always keep a visualization of the benefits of accomplishing your goal.  See yourself accomplishing it eventually.  I saw my grounds manicured...and minus the pile.  In addition, remember your investment but remember to adjust your sub-goals to reach your ultimate goal.   I remembered the hours of trim-work I had already put into reaching my ultimate goal, that created the forest pile in the first place.  Removing the forest pile became my next sub-goal.

2.)  Don't be afraid to change your approach.  If you find you are inefficient, or heading in the wrong direction, reevaluate what your are doing, take a different approach or devise a new system for completion.  When I tried to cram debris into my "campfire" that wasn't cut to the right size, it wasted my time and was certainly not efficient.  I quickly adjusted and took more care in cutting pieces to size that made sense.  I also paced the burn down of each mound by making sure I had another mound of debris cut to size and ready to throw on the campfire.

3.)  Stay focused on accomplishing your goal.  Avoid distractions.  There were outside noises, body aches, attempted dialogue, and even creatures...like a toad.  However I stayed focused and kept conversation courteous, but short and sweet.

4.)  Stay nourished.   Make sure you stay nourished with healthy food and drink so your batteries don't run out.  In my case, I intermittently drank tons of water and had some healthy snacks.  Soda and candy won't help you win.

5.)  Expect the best, but plan for the worst.  I realized my ultimate goal, of creating manicured grounds, required much more time than originally anticipated. I had only planned on one hour.  I had to quickly adjust, and invest more time and energy to reach my ultimate goal. 

6.)  Enjoy the journey.  The mini-wins, and by-products of your work, are often greater treasurers than the sum of the them...accomplishing the ultimate goal itself.   I had to modify my original one-hour plan, and set a bunch of other goals to achieve my ultimate goal.    Trimming and sawing trees, branches, and shrubs throughout my grounds ended up being a bunch of mini-goals as I focused on clean-up on each section of my grounds.  Then I set a bunch of mini-goals to remove the pile by concentrating on a section at a time, and burning a mound at a time.  I got exercise.  I didn't just burn wood.  I burned calories.  I got fresh air.  I learned lessons.

7.)  As you conquer or remove each obstacle to your goal, you can become refueled by the energy of each mini-accomplishment.  My project grew to an enormous size in order to achieve my ultimate goal.  It appeared insurmountable, at the very least, in the time-frame I gave it for completion.  I focused on sub-goals or mini-achievements to make my ultimate goal reality.  Each mini-accomplishment carries you to the next step to your goal, if you maintain a positive, receptive mindset.  I focused on one section of the pile at a time, and as I pruned, sawed and removed that section I began to see the bottom of the pile of that section. This gave me the satisfaction of a achieving a mini-accomplishment, which reinforced that my ultimate goal was attainable.

8.)  Your goal appears to be increasingly attainable with each mini-goal you achieve.  Although, you always want your ultimate goal on your radar throughout your journey, it as if you can see it clearer with each mini-accomplishment.  When your vision intensifies, so does your determination.

9.)  Stand back and admire your accomplishment.  Relish in your success.  Let it inspire you to accomplish your next goal.  Get started on your next goal, rather than wasting your time kissing your trophy.

PS  Please "like" and "share" this article so someone else can grab a s'more and enjoy it during their next campfire.