From Zoe’s perspective, it doesn’t look so easy. That first step is as tall as she is. She can barely see the top and sometimes she’ll stand on the floor looking at that first step and start to doubt herself. Once she starts to doubt herself, she’ll start to whine. It’s kind of like praying. She’s crying out for outside help to overcome a problem that just seems way to big for her.

There are times when we’ll reach down and pull her up to cuddle, but more often we don’t. We know she can make it. We’ve seen her do it hundreds of times, and the path we created for her was all about making her journey easier. She just can’t see the big picture. All she sees is that big stair and she’s worried about it. She seems to have forgotten all those other times she jumped up without hesitation. I know she just has to stretch herself and put some energy into it and after a little whining, she eventually comes to the same conclusion.

Throughout my life, I’ve seen social situations as a huge obstacle. Connecting with people you want to know better seems so easy for other people, but for me? I really have to stretch myself and put some energy into to it. When I’m focused on how hard it seems, it’s easy to forget all the times in the past when I did what was required and it worked out great. I assume Zoe thinks she’s going to miss if she tries to take that jump, but the thing she fears almost never happens. Same thing with me in social situations. The things I fear almost never happen, and even when they do I survive and I end up a little smarter than before.

I wonder how many times in life we end up not doing something that could turn out great, just because that first step is all we’re looking at and it seems way too big and way too scary. In reality the path is not the big, old, bad challenge we fear. The pathway has probably been setup for us in a way that makes it possible for us to win. All we have to do is stretch ourselves and put some energy into it. I learned that from a Chihuahua!