When we finally overcome our nervousness about getting started we feel great. The first push of the boulder is always the hardest, momentum will help from here.
The reality, though, is that the hill is often not as steep as we thought it was and the momentum may be halted by tree branches, smaller rocks or even people rather than rumbling its way to the bottom untouched.
When that boulder stops no one can ever say for certain whether it’s gone as far as it can. It may be leaning up against an insurmountable obstacle or an unrelenting opposition, or it might be a finger-push away from barrelling down to its destination. But that’s not the point.
The point is that we have the chance to start again. We have a choice.
We can start pushing the same boulder and see if it’ll budge, we can start pushing a smaller rock on the same hill to see if we can get that one going instead, or we can choose an entirely different hill on which to find an entirely different boulder we think we can shift.
Of course, we also have the option to do nothing, to tell ourselves we can’t do it, that we’re done with pushing boulders.
We must never, ever take that option.
Regardless which boulder we decide to put our shoulder to, we must keep pushing. We must try to see how far we can go with this one, and the next one, and the one after that.
It doesn’t matter how many rocks on how many hills we try to shift, we must not stop starting.