I finished a piece of work a week ago. When I started it about two months ago I just didn’t know how I would ever be able to see the end of it. It seemed to be one of those things that one wished to see the end of but one couldn’t bear to start… if you know what I mean. After I ended it I actually marvelled at it… I found it difficult to imagine that I had actually managed to do it…that I had actually painstakingly and laboriously written all those words on paper and filled all those pages with words. It seemed as if the whole thing must have magically dropped from heaven or that some inspired spirit must have moved me to write it… that’s how I feel at the end, surveying the whole work, very different from at the beginning when every step or word seems heavy…

Someone shared the following excerpt today and it resonated with me. I guess this is the attitude with which I try to approach my work too. Though I want nothing more than to reach the end, I know that reaching the end wouldn’t satisfy me if I don’t have something good to show for the journey…

-------------------

“You see, Momo,' he [Beppo Roadsweeper] told her one day, 'it's like this. Sometimes, when you've a very long street ahead of you, you think how terribly long it is and feel sure you'll never get it swept.'

He gazed silently into space before continuing. 'And then you start to hurry,' he went on. 'You work faster and faster, and every time you look up there seems to be just as much left to sweep as before, and you try even harder, and you panic, and in the end you're out of breath and have to stop - and still the street stretches away in front of you. That's not the way to do it.'

He pondered a while. Then he said, 'You must never think of the whole street at once, understand? You must only concentrate on the next step, the next breath, the next stroke of the broom, and the next, and the next. Nothing else.'

Again he paused for thought before adding, 'That way you enjoy your work, which is important, because then you make a good job of it. And that's how it ought to be.'

There was another long silence. At last he went on, 'And all at once, before you know it, you find you've swept the whole street clean, bit by bit. What's more, you aren't out of breath.' He nodded to himself. 'That's important, too,' he concluded.”

~Michael Ende, Momo