February 9, 2007 - Photo #0003 - "Little Victories"

In each and every day, battles are lost and won in every person's life. Life presents to us a multitude of competitions, ranging from a blurry-eyed attempt to silence an early alarm clock to battling your own memory in an attempt to locate just enough quarters to get in a load of laundry.

Daily challenges are often cursed as obstacles to an ultimate goal, time-wasters, frustrators and so on. But who doesn't take in that sweet moment of victory, that breath of relief, when a goal is completed?

Leaning against itself in pieces and unfinished, the nightstand lay apart, a small pile of screws, hinges and wood rapidly becoming a staple of our bedroom. Where does a nightstand rank on levels of importance? Isn't there better things to do with your time than put together another of IKEA's patchwork furnishings? Caroline defied the female stereotype, and furthered the lazy Travis stereotype, and took a piece of the day to battle a bit of wood gathered in China, sent across the sea to Canada and trucked to Southern California for us to cobble together. When you consider the effort and travel put into this simple cube, the complication of the assembly seems insignificant and almost obligatory.

Failure is giving in to the hesitation and fear that success may be out of your reach. Determined to not be branded as the incapable damsel, waiting for her knight to rescue her and show her how to properly attach a hinge, Caroline took on the nightstand. At the start, the little box seemed as if it would barely measure over a few inches tall if completed successfully, but would tower over the room if assembled incorrectly.

Determination and a screwdriver were all Caroline needed to put the pieces together, and be lucky enough to not end up with an extra bolt with no home.

No matter how simple or difficult a challenge, you can still cherish that final moment, when you take an unfinished task and cross it off the list. Realize that accomplishing something...anything...is a worthwhile venture. Accomplishment and our small victories are feelings to be relished, moments to be savored, a statement to one's self where you can say, "Hey, I did this." The next step is simple, "Hey, what can I do next?"

Every victory, no matter how small, is still a victory, and should be celebrated as such.
Every challenge, no matter how large, is a potential victory just waiting to happen.