"You see, Momo," he 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."
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."
Michael Ende in Momo
20We're all going to die, all of us, what a circus! That alone should make us love each other but it doesn't. We are terrorized and flattened by trivialities, we are eaten up by nothing.
But time is life itself, and life resides in the human heart.
Michael Ende in Momo - und die grauen Herren
13Go find something that you haven't done before. Don't do the same thing over and over again.
I began to realize how simple life could be if one had a regular routine to follow with fixed hours, a fixed salary, and very little original thinking to do.
It's cute how I used to think this 'barely holding it together' feeling was temporary.
Tomorrow is gonna be just like today, and I know that because today is just like yesterday.
Amy Sosa in Superstore - Season 1 Episode 1
I'm just looking to get through the day.
Think ahead. Don't let day-to-day operations drive out planning.
I think it's important to find the little things in everyday life that make you happy.
The greatest heroes are those who do their duty in the daily grind of domestic affairs whilst the world whirls as a maddening dreidel.
